Right, so I’ve just taken on another huge list without anyone asking? Cool.
And the overall quality of this list is… pretty mindblowing, as you’d imagine. It was a painful experience getting it down to just 101, and the strength of the competition has meant that proper Necessary Evil alumni like Sharon van Etten, Christine & the Queens and Lykke Li couldn’t fit in. And speaking of harshness, strictly (kinda strictly) only one entry per artist, which has meant that even some former Legit Boss winning songs failed to get in simply because the artist did an even better song in a different year. And remarkably few of the Necessary Evil albums of the year are represented.
And I’m not trying to spin any narrative here – these aren’t the 101 songs that I can link back to my disability in any way, I’m not saying that these next 101 songs were all important to my recovery, or that these 101 songs saved my life in any way (though they all did, as music can do that), just the scientific fact that these are 101 songs released since Mat 4th 2013 that simply slapped hardest.
At the very least, these 101 songs make up the greatest YouTube and Spotify playlists of all time, and the quality of these next one hundred and one songs is going to be headspinning.
Beginning with the least headspinning to the most, yeah? You know how this goes:
Straight to ya dome, like “Whoa whoa whoa”.
I’m not here to debate the legitimacy, I’m just here to feel the vibes.
#11 in 2017
Phew, the God that is Katie Crutchfield only just makes this list! Six entries into Necessary Evil in the last decade, debuting with ‘Cerulean Salt’ in 2013, and a constant source of slaps. My first choice of Waxahatchee representation was the grimy acoustic punk of Peace and Quiet from that 2013 record, until I learned that album was actually released two months before the eligible period. Dude, I was fully physically able when that song first came out, what’s the point??
However, the whole exercise forced me to return to 2017’s ‘Out in the Storm‘ and – hands up – I had forgotten how much Hear You fucks hard. The greatest song of an incredible career, and perhaps the apex of my Waxamania before she took her music into more country and Americana directions which never sparked joy in me to quite the same degree.
99 Superorganism: Everybody Wants to be Famous
Seriously, go and remind yourself how much of a freaking bop this tune was.
98 Anohni: She Doesn’t Mourn Her Loss
Before you start your usual Frank Ocean whining, I’d just like to politely remind you that the megafans have technically been waiting even longer for a proper follow-up to Anohni’s incredible 2016 album, and do you hear me moaning about it?? Hmm? What’s that? Each and every day, you say? Well, my point still stands. Hmm? What’s that? What was my point, you say? My point is shut the fuck up!
Anohni generally (and successfully) employs far more electro bangers under her new name than she did as Anthony and the Johnsons, though it’s this mournful ballad that could have easily slipped onto ‘I’m a Bird Now’ back in 2005 that has stuck with me most over the last ten years.
#22 in 2020
Yes, obviously, there’s the way Julian Casablancas bends his voice around that opening line, and I’m happy to accept that this isn’t technically that good a song if you maybe somehow removed that toxic influence of nostalgia from my drug-addled mind. But at the same time: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you, it’s 2001 again, drugs are plentiful, responsibilities are rare, and The Strokes are fucking amazing again.
96 Luke Haines and Peter Buck: Jack Parsons
We got L .Ron and the O.T.O! Can you tell your wife to take off her clothes? We’ll have her fumble in the hedge row, baby! You see, rocket fuel makes me horny, terra firma kinda bores me. I wanna be up there with the angels! I want to fall back down to Earth with the angels!
No further statements, your honour.
I used to consider myself a huge dance music fan. I would kind of like to still consider myself one, but dance music has had an awful decade. Electronic music has seen a massive split between the dancefloor and the armchairs, so that the greatest and most experimental music is now often made simply for admiration, and the task of getting your bum on the floor has often fell to the more cynical and now 100% US commodified near novelty EDM nonsense.
Especially of you didn’t rate the last Beyoncé album. Which in itself is emblematic of all the ‘decent’ club aware dance music now is just shameless cribs of earlier styles, rather than a proper attempt to update the experience.
Anyway, Hot Chip released a few bangers, but they’re, like, a million years old. Embarrassing
Um… OK. So we’ve already had the two best songs of 2020 (as rated at the time)? Is that it for 2020 now?? Has it just officially tapped out after ten entries and three songs??
I honestly can’t remember if I’ve already said this, but seems like a good time to make it clear that this list doesn’t necessarily reflect my end of year Legit Bosses. Opinions change, motherfuckers! Look, Anohni finished above Hear You despite finishing sixteen places lower in 2017! Who knows what’s going to happen?! Stay tuned, hit that subscribe button as hard as you can.
I also want to make it clear that I am running through the streets in circles, I am jumping through rings with wings. Got that?
93 Amanda Palmer: A Mother’s Confession
#26 in 2019
Beautiful. One of the greatest artistic expressions of the tiny, seemingly insignificant but world changing horrors that come with parenting a young child. At times, legitimately devastating. “At least the baby didn’t die”.
Also, more than ten minutes? Absolutely my jam.
I pull up, roll up, fuck up
Fast like a Nascar, never touch us
Got visions, levels, they don’t get me
Quiet, no discussions, please hush
OK, so Charli (baby) has to feature, right? Six albums in Necessary Evil countdowns, and one of the most notable and exciting musical artists over the past decade. The problem with Charli (baby), is that she’s at once one of the most significant musical innovators of recent years… but she also makes absolute pop bangers when she wants to! I could have highlighted the later, thrown a Boom Clap or a Crash in here, but I’ve chosen to go for the track I believe best signifies her ability to craft absolute aural insanity while also never forgetting to fuck (in the pop music sense. Maybe in every sense, I dunno).
91 Sufjan Stevens: Fourth of July
Ah, mate. This song has literally killed me. Just like it will kill you. That’s a warning. Has there been a more beautifully devastating song, like, ever?
I’m going to be making some pretty big statements on this list, literally all of the songs are alltimers.
OK, we are back in the room! You’ll want to seek out the full album version, that extended intro really just makes everything hit harder.
This. Is fucking. Dance music. And unmistakably made in the last ten years, not in some Chicago nightclub in 1992.
OK, so this is the first song I’ll accept you might have an excuse for not having heard before. More emotionally devastating gorgeousness, and deserves its place simply on the basis of the opening line “I’m afraid of getting cancer/And you probably should be too”.
#39 in 2018
I’ll finally shut my mouth, feel both my feet touch ground.
Put an end to this run.
Just say the word and I’ll juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuump
CRASH!
Fuck, a bit too real this song, isn’t it? It may have been released in 2018, but those thoughts would absolutely mirror other events in early 2013, personally.
Jesus though, when everything crashes in on the word “jump”? It will make you pregnant.
87 mynameisblueskye: New Blog Entry
Aw shucks, another song that just destroys me. Astonishing how blueskye can create such beauty with so little elements.
Also, the first song so far that’s too obscure to even be on YouTube. So I uploaded it myself 😬. Please don’t be mad…
God damnit!! This was the most difficult one so far. Right up until today it was Bless Me, mainly based on that songs sheer anthemic beauty and the fact that singing along to the “You’re-her going no-where with me!” coda is simply irresistible.
But, at the last minute I decided that that glorious psychosexual tour de force that is Virile deserves the spot because, holy shit, have you seen that video? I would let this song/person do anything to me.
Couple girls, couple stories and a couple shrooms? Mmm?
Another song that’s totally about me.
Oh Goooooooooooooooood, lay it on me, mammy!
Too weird? Too weird. Delete that first line.
An absolutely irresistibly laconic slice of unbridled cool. That half arsed guitar solo where Webster barely sounds like she gives a fuck? Sexiest moment of the decade. After that Moses Sumney video, obviously.
Ho-li-hiiiii hounds of heaven at our si-hiiiide!
Mmmm! Ah say MMMMMMMMMMMM!
This is a meaty rock song! It has bones, sure, but surrounding those bones is layers upon layers of prime motherfucking meat! Get it doen you, let the blood pour down your chin. It’s good for you.
Full disclosure, I probably would have found a way to get Mark Lanegan in somehow, regardless of the song’s quality. Luckily for me, and the legitimacy of this list, he happened to release one of his best ever songs just over five years back. Not only is Nocturne an absolute knicker wetter, it’s also one of the most Mark Lanegan Mark Lanegan songs there is. Deep South mysticism, swamp rock danger, sad odes to lost loves and lost capacity that somehow manages to sound terrifying… It’s all here.
80 Zeal & Ardor: Built on Ashes
This was another choice that killed me. I could so easily have gone for Devil is Fine, the song that first introduced us all to the crazed metal meets slave spirituals that were Z&A’s stock-in-trade, and certainly nothing the band did after that could ever replicate that shock of the new. Then there’s the perversely rousing Gravedigger’s Chant, the lead single and opening track from their first album proper, which first saw them properly merge their metal with the original proof of concept.
And I hear all that, I really do, but have you considered the point near the end of Built on Ashes where after building up a whirlwind of stirring noise rock (“Don’t you fix your eyes, don’t you fix your eyes on me now!”) up to the line “We never said you’d come back home” only to fall out as the words are repeated only to come crashing back in again?
Yeah, you can’t compete with that.
79 Justin Blackburn: Don’t Go to College
#31 in 2021
It happened so fast! My car ran out of gas!
Absolute genius by Mr Blackburn, and a YouTube video currently with 62 views. Hey, TikTokkers, can you create a dance move to this or something? Can we not get this to go viral or something? I can’t understand how this didn’t make Justin Blackburn the biggest star in the world.
Another marvelous song that I had to upload to YouTube myself. However, I do promise that if this gorgeous but criminally overlooked alt ballad finally gets into the mainstream based on my video and starts making me millions, I will definitely… block Efficax (FKA Helltown) on Twitter and never speak to her again. Agagagaga! Sucker!
An absolutely pristine slice of indie pop.
I’ve had various issues with Bey in the six or so years since, but it’s simply undeniable that her 2016 ‘Lemonade’ album/movie is still the most notable, the most satisfyingly, the most in step with both culture and politics of the last decade. It’s almost too big for a list like this, and I struggled to think of a song that spoke to me singularly over the general joy of losing yourself in the full album. Formation is an absolute all-freaking-timer, of course, but nothing from that album can ever hope to live up quite as well on its own without being part of such a thrilling collective,
75 JPEGMAFIA X TOMMY GENESIS: Rough 7
Didn’t even make the top thirty in the year it was released, but few songs of that or any other year have stayed with me as much as Rough 7. The best song by JPEGMAFIA, who has absolutely owned the last decade if you care at all about expansive and critically fawned over hip hop production, and my own personal introduction to the genius ‘fetish rap’ of Tommy Genesis.
Oh lord take me now.
This song is simply the biggest thing in existence. It’s skyscraper. It’s cavernous. It’s epic beyond human comprehension. Mount Everest ain’t got shit on it (spoiler alert).
NEW ENTRY
You’ll possibly notice that songs from the more immediately recent years – your 2021s, your 2022s – are likely to be far less represented on this list, as it generally takes a number of years before you feel that you have allowed music enough time to burrow under your skin and into your soul to the point that you could consider it amongst the best ever.
Well, Shiver was released a matter of months ago, and here it is. Because Shiver don’t play by your rules. Shiver just destroys.
72 Quelle Chris: Straight Shot
There go Q talking’ me off a ledge again.
What an extraordinary achievement. Six minutes of high musical melodrama and unbearable emotion, with a heartbreaking ten minute video. All while underpinned with music that sounds quite unlike anything else released since 2013. Weren’t we beautiful once?
Weren’t we beautiful once?
70 Plants and Animals: No Worries Gonna Find Us
You turn around, you turn around, she’s running out on you. Look at her eyes, look at her eyes, look at her eyes, look at her eyes. Around seven years after first hearing it, that line still makes my heart explode.
69 (dude) Prince and 3rdeyegirl: Wow
No songs list in 2014
Hey! I managed to get a Prince song on the list! This is despite the fact – even with all my love and the fact that I have long been the most ardent defenders of some of His less heralded/most shit upon 90s/00s music – that he was not generally at his best in the last decade of his life, including the years that this list covers. The 3rdeyegirl record was a massive outlier amongst his last pieces of work, as it absolutely at least deserved to be considered alongside his best. Near the bottom of that particular list, admittedly, but considered.
I considered being a bit of an arse and putting this as a 3rdeyegirl song so that I could slip another Prince song on the list, but… no… there weren’t really any possibilities outside this album.
And number 69? It’s what he would have wanted
68 Avalanches: Running Red Lights
Oh what?? So this list of the greatest music allowed into our ears over the past decade includes fricking Rivers Cuomo?? I’m actually giving credit in some sort to fucking Weezer?? WEEZER?!?! Jesus, I can’t deny that I feel a little sick, but my God this tune is just hideously good, isn’t it?
This song just makes me wanna croon, you know?
One of the decades most perfectly constructed pop songs, that just happens to have been made by some guy from New Zealand that nobody’s ever heard of and produced in their bedroom.
Talk sick shit? You gon’ have to show me
Hey Ro…
[pregnant pause]
[pregnant pause]
[pregnant pause]
…sey I think I know just what the feeling is. The National are pretty much establishment sad rockers now, so it’s good to remind yourself now and then quite what they’re capable of.
63 Manic Street Preachers: Walk Me To the Bridge
no song list in 2014 (22nd best Manic song ever)
Oh I’m sorry, there being a Manics song on this list must be a tremendous shock to you.
The song’s actual quality is actually of secondary importance, and it doesn’t really matter whether it still holds up nearly a decade later. No, the important factor is the excitement that the song first inspired in me, that I can still feel to this day.
After a couple of absolute stinkers (one that might be up for reevaluation in the future, one piece of absolute shit that is only getting worse with age) I had just about accepted that the band’s great emotional laceration ‘Journal for Plague Lovers‘ might have quite understandably seen the band just take a break for the rest of their career and instead concentrate on just making inessential but maybe fun to perform rock nonentities. But for them to come back with this, an absolute Iconic Manics Banger (IMB) and couple it with the scientifically proven greatest album of 2014? Ma dudes, it was all too much.
Oh, but the song’s an absolute fucking banger whatever the context, so forget I said all that.
62 Sky Ferriera: I Blame Myself
no song list in 2013/4
Oh my God, ‘member Sky Ferriera?? Again, the crybaby Frank Ocean fans can sit the fuck down – it’s been damn near ten years since Ms Ferriera’s only album.
61 Stella Donnelly: Boys Will Be Boys
Geez, thanks a lot, Captain Bringdown. From Sky’s glittered synthpop boisterousness to… overwhelming moral exactitude over a plugged acoustic. I’ve heard this song roughly 72’897’004 times in the five years since it was released, so I no longer cry every time I hear it, but I really should warn new listeners.
Time to pay the fucking rent.
60 Blanck Mass: House vs House
Yes! This! This is the dance music that I’m always searching for!! It’s loud, it’s complex, it’s epic, it crushes your soul, it builds and then builds and then builds and then motherfucking builds until reaching a peak thatb will make you see God!
Come on, is that really too much to ask for?
didn’t make the 2015 list
I just gave up on Years & Years didn’t I? Their debut album made #53 back in 2015, then I never touched them again. I’m not quite sure.
OK, so I did start that review of their debut album with the sentence “There’s something undeniably and inherently dislikeable about Years & Years”, but still. Eight years on, I honestly don’t know where that animosity came from. Yes, when they first arrived on the scene they did give a big ‘Pop Album Arranged On Stage School Work Placement’ vibe, but now I’m left wondering if pop miracles like Shine later became the norm for them. That “Ooo-ooo, uh-oooo” is one of my favourite vocalisation spots of the decade.
58 Brody Dalle: Blood in Gutters
no best song list in 2014
Eeeeeeeeeeeeesh… Listen, I’m not sure how ‘problematic’ Brody Dalle is officially decreed these days. The fact that her former partner Josh Homme has been able to take out a one year and eleven month restraining order against Dalle, which will mean she won’t be legally allowed to even see her own children for almost two years, suggests that things are… slightly off. All that we can really say is that she’s obviously not in a good place and hope that she gets better.
Fuck me though, ‘Diploid Love‘ was a fucking flex though, wasn’t it? And Blood in the Gutters is the record’s zenith of pop punk perfection.
57 Band of Horses: Casual Party
Fuckin’ Band of frickin’ Horses join the party! I love this list so much.
BLIND FAITH!
Join in at the back…
#20 in 2018
Man, Royce burned so bright for such a short time. There are multiple bangers from his ‘Book of Ryan‘ LP that I could have chosen, but both the storytelling and the magnificent way Royce wraps his flow around the lyrics will make this song a forever standout.
no song list in 2014
So let me tell you about this girl I know.
She’s soooooooooooooo blonde.
It’s been more than five years since the last EMA album, which has meant that I’m in danger of forgetting how much I love them.
Yeah, revisiting this banger put paid to that fear. I honestly can’t think of a cooler artist this past decade.
That bit near the end where she’s telling you about a guy she knows, and hangs on to the ‘soooooo’ just a milisecond longer than usual? Genius.
54 Camp Cope: Running With the Hurricane
Hey! The best song of last year! This will surely be the last 2022 song we hear, as it simply beggars believability that I could have changed my mind and ranked something higher just four months later.
Also, the wonderful Camp Cope are the latest victim of the dreaded Necessary Evil curse. I named Low as the best album of 2021 and Mimi Parker died before the end of 2022. Last year I named one of the greatest rock songs of modern times as 2022’s best track, and the fuckers split up about a month later! The power this blog has even scares me sometimes.
i never thought that i would need your love so much
but i need it now more than ever
and as i give myself up this final time
i become yours forever
and every second that i wait i wont get back
but you want it now and forever
so i give myself up this final time
Seriously, what is this? I have no idea who Lalić are, I heard this absolutely mindblowing encapsulation of electronic thunderstorms on the Z Tape Spring 2018 compilation album. What… what even is this? Was this made by humans? How? How can humans do that? I got Lalić’s album that contained Deed Rider and… no. Nothing on it sounded remotely like this. The artist themselves couldn’t even recreate whatever magic took over the tape recorder when this song was made. This song is fucking cursed. It’s haunted. And I love it.
Again, because we’re dealing with a spiritual menace here, I had to just upload it to YouTube myself.
“I guess the therapist I found for you really helped”. I’m sorry, we can all damn with borderline faint praise how much of an infectious pop punk throwback Good 4 U is, but the fact is that many elder, more respected artists generally treated with far more reverence and respect would fucking kill for a line as good as that.
51 Marina and the Diamonds: I’m a Ruin
unlisted in 2015, #24 in 2019
Yeah-e-yeah-e-yeah, a-ha…
You know what, it doesn’t really hit as hard when written down:
I kind of missed this song when it first came out, as much as I loved ‘Froot’ I bizarrely never considered it a standout. It wasn’t until I saw Marina live for the first time in 2019 (hence its re-entry that year. Oh matron) that its majesty really struck me. Absolutely the best song Marina’s ever done*.
(*if we can’t count her two best albums, which she released before 2013)
50 Hannah Cohen: Watching You Fall
unlisted in 2015
I’ve said it repeatedly for close to eight years now, but I honestly don’t believe that music gets any better than when, three and a half minutes into this song, it breaks down around Ms Cohen’s yearning cries of “But you’re still my baby! Yeah, you’re still my baby! Oh, you’re still my baby!“.
Her next album was vastly superior, and I could have easily chosen something like This is Your Life, Old Bruiser or (especially) Wasting My Time for this list.
But that moment, man…
She said “Are you kid-ding me??
Your nar-
-cis-
-sis-
-tic-
be-
-hai-
-vour
has been killing me!
For three years and maybe more”
Holy shitballs, ma dudes, this song kicks so much arse. It’s, like… one of the best songs of… the last ten years… or something.
An incredibly crafted and furiously undeniable pop song, one of the first songs that came to mind when I was planning this list in my head. And yet, it almost wasn’t included! Like, do you remember Crack a Smile?? What an incredible song that was!! The song may have got to #9 in 2019, but until writing this list it had simply slipped my mind in the 3.5 years since what a stone broiled banger it was. It was this close to knocking an early favourite off the list.
Listen, friends, Romans, cunty men – if we also take into account earlier songs like the alltimer O.N.E – can we not please appreciate how Yeasayer were just a certified Banger Factory?
no songs list in 2014
Yeah, screw the lot of you, I’m doing this.
The moment that Taylor began to be considered more than just silly girl music was also counterintuitively when she released the silliest and girliest song she’d ever done. And immediately, as she was now a ‘respected’ artist, it started the chin stroking controversy and explanations of how problematic she was that would follow her for next near decade.
She’s done songs that are technically far ‘better’ than Shake it Off, worked on projects far more thoughtful and artistically impressive. But she has never been anywhere near as fun.
Haters gonna hate. hate. hate, hate, hate…
Shit, my Kryptonite…
Listen, I know that Lil Yachty is awful, I know he’s so problematic that he’s probably been retweeted by JK Rowling, I know that a good 80-90% of his output is artistically undefendable. But… I’m kind of obsessed with him.
And it all comes down to this song. I think there’s real genius in ‘dumb’ pop music, and Minnesota occupies a similar space of perfection that we all agreed that Lil Nas X achieved with Old Town Road (I’m sure that’s the last we’ll hear about that song). It’s dumb as dogs cock, yes, but it’s also somehow cool. It’s the most offensively basic Casio keyboard construction, and yet also a motherfucking work of genius.
Cause it get cold like Minnesota, ridin’ ’round on boulders
Money sittin’ up, it sits way above your shoulders
I was eatin’ pork and rinds with a bitch from New York Times
I don’t eat no pork and rinds but that bitch was mighty fine
I got gold all on my necklace, tatted up my arms
Now my mama think I’m reckless, got guns under my mattress
I was juggin since a youngin’, free my older cousin Reesey
He from Hamilton not D.C, I rock N.Bs like I’m Gleetchie
Flip phone banging off the walls, Gucci on my drawers
Why the fuck you in these streets if you scared of them four walls?
I was strokin’ on your sister, she was callin’ me her mister
She suck dick for a picture, it’s Lil Yachty nice to meet you
That drop, man. That fucking drop. You wanna make me bad, make me bad? (Although, in truth, I like it like that, and I like it like that)
Also, hilariously, The Art of War is blurred out on YouTube. Hey, America, how about you stop actually starting wars that kills hundreds of thousands of nonwhite people first? Priorities, yeah?
I will never apologise for how much love this song deserves. It. Hits. Hard.
A scandalously low ranking in 2018, and the first song to have a higher ranking in the decade list than it did in its own year.
Perhaps, depressingly, it’s only becoming more and more pertinent, and will likely become more so in the coming years.
Like stats? In this ten year time period, police in the USA have killed 258 unarmed black people.
43 Self Esteem: Prioritise Pleasure
So lean iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin
ONE TWO THREE!
Prioritiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise
PLEAS-UR-ING ME!!
I don’t take all the credit for Self Esteem’s recent success. Perhaps as little as 30 or 40%. She gave me advice on a haircut early in her career, and I can’t help but feel that gave her the creative inspiration to write her all conquering second album. Oh, and I’m pretty sure I was her ‘reply guy’ at one point. It’s a cool story (bros).
OK, here’s another one I don’t understand. My best friend Mabel just casually made one of smoothest, one of the catchiest, one of the most anthemic, one of the sexiest pop songs of the past decade, and you plebs just ignored it?! Why isn’t she as big as Bad Bunny now? Too good?
That was a bad/good play on words. No, it wasn’t very good, but I still wish for it to be acknowledged.
I am myself a shelter
My own personal hell girl
There’s no other place I can go
Inside, I am unbounded
Constantly unravelingThere must be a place I can go
Yeah, kids today hate capital letters.
This song holds a mystical spell over me. Even with the most horrendous weeb video you’re likely to see. Katie Dey is a fucking witch. Fuck her, right?
Yeah, so apparently this is a song by ‘Kendrza’, a supergroup that happens to contain Kendrick Lamar and SZA but isn’t actually by either Kendrick Lamar or SZA. So technically neither Kendrick Lamar or SZA have been on this list yet so, hypothetically speaking, if either Kenrick Lamar or SZA happened to have other songs on this list, then I wouldn’t be breaking my own rules. We clear?
This song is absolutely magical.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck… Speaking of the One Per Artist rule, no other artist on the list was as agonising to pick for than the Godlike Michael Hadreas. Which, considering only two Perfume Genius albums have made Necessary Evil in this period (#1 in 2017, #2 in 2020*), is quite some feat. From that #1 album, why not the euphoric maximalism of Slip Away?? Or – be still my beating bosom! -the heartbreaking melodrama of Alan?! I’m here! How weird! Or, from that equally fabulous #2 album, what about the irresistible bounce of On the Floor?! Won’t somebody think of On the Floor?!
(*OK, fine, technically there was also ‘Ugly Season’ at #47 last year, but that… doesn’t count… for reasons… But consider Pop Song from that album as well if you’re so inclined!)
Sigh… Whatever I picked would mean a good dozen slices of legitimate genius would be disregarded. At the last minute I decided to go with Describe because, I dunno, it’s like a gay Mark Lanegan. Which is the one way you could improve Mark Lanegan!
not listed in 2015/16
OK, no such selection trauma this time. Like, this is by far Drake’s best song, right?! This isn’t even close to a debate.
Sadly, this list gets its first death list entry. Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchinson committed suicide just two years after this anthemic, joyous piece of utter genius was released. He was two years older than me, and killed himself almost exactly five years after my own fall. I will be 40 this year, Scott died age 36.
I come flutterin’ in from Neverland
Time could never stop me, no, no, no, no, I know you try to
I come riding in on a pale white horse
Sending out ice to less fortunate, I do advise you
Could almost be considered a deep cut. The mindblowing opening track of what remains her last album in 2016 (you Frank Ocean fans complaining about etc and so on) is possibly her greatest ever song, an absolute behemoth that reveals new small pieces of genius even on the millionth listen (which I am currently on).
And who’s this unknown upstart ‘SZA’ introducing herself with “Let me cover your shit in glitter, I can make it gold”?? Seriously, there’s not been a better reveal of a main character since Harry Lime in The Third Man.
Ah, bollocks though, I really loved FourFiveSeconds though…
OK, OK, Ok, so this is just insane. This might be the greatest dance song released in the last ten years. It’s an absolutely thrilling ride through your own nervous system, the production is immaculate, it’s both high drama and underlying dread, and most importantly it makes you want to get your skinny arse to the dance floor!
It’s on a soundtrack to an obscure indie game. Last time I checked it wasn’t even on Spotify, I have no idea who Mono Mirror are, and I had to upload this chunk of electro dominance to YouTube myself. As a great writer once said:
Whoop!
Whoop!
Whoop!
Whoopwhoopwhoop!
Firstly, that’s not how you spell ‘labyrinth’.
Secondly, am I only so in love with this song because of how much I loved the show Euphoria? The first season, anyway.
Thirdly, did I only love Euphoria because I’m a dirty old man who likes to watch girls get their tits out in what a middle aged man would imagine high school is like in 2019?
Jump in anytime, these are good topics.
33 serpentwithfeet: Same Size Shoes
#1 in 2021
Hey everyone? Just… cool it down, OK? Maybe everything’s gonna be alright.
He’s talking about his dick, right?
Ahgotahgotahgotahgot!!
Listen, steady yourselves, get some aloe vera ready, because this is going to be a burning hot take:
Kendrick Lamar is ever so slightly overrated.
As a lyricist? Unparalleled. As an important chronicler of the state of affairs in the early part of the 21st century? Yeah, that’s him. As a frequent creator of great songs? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh…
A lot of his work is impressive, there’s no doubt about that, but I just think he so frequently lacks that special something that moves a song from the beard strokers to the hand throwers, and I personally believe the absolute best artists are able to combine the two.
However, another skill that he is also unparalleled in, and one that so rarely comes up – largely among people who don’t like to consider it a ‘proper’ skill – is that he is a generational rapper. His flow and enunciations are among the absolute best of all time, and when given full room to shine his delivery can be absolutely thrilling. His talents may be on show most on DNA, which is a truly irresistible shock to the system. And yeah, fuck it, get to that dance floor.
31 Unknown Mortal Orchestra: We’re Not in Love We’re Just High
Wouldn’t it be really smart – and more than a little cute – to place the actual song Necessary Evil on this list, considering it’s the very thing that inspired the name of the blog?? Yeah, that’s a brilliant idea. In fact, it’s such a great idea that you’d have to be an idiot not to.
Anyway, here’s We’re Not in Love We’re Just High, from an album that – and let’s be clear, we’re all friends here – absolutely stunk. This song though, the gorgeous simplicity, the logically impossible way Ruban Nielson squeezes and contorts the words into the melody, the fact that the song is – again – so obviously all about me! Superb.
30 The Anxiety: Meet Me At Our Spot
I’m sorry, but just for bringing this piece of gorgeous zoomer malaise, TikTok has been massively positive for music as a whole.
All these fans complaining about waiting so long for Frank Ocean’s album have no idea, because it’s been… Oh wait, this one is Frank Ocean.
The sound on this song though, Ocean could spend another century working on the follow up and I just can’t see him producing a sound as magical as these. Nor anyone else, for that matter.
Ooh, nani nani
This feel like a Quaalude
DONG!
I’m writing a book on how to stay conscious when you drown
DONG
And if the words float up to the surface
I’ll keep them down
CHVRCHES, ma dudes, don’t even get me started! They released their debut album in September 2013, while I would have been at Sheffield hospital, they were at #13 in the 2013 list, and now all four of their albums have made the countdown. And did someone say embarrassment of riches?!
No? Nobody said anything? That’s a shame, would have really helped my rhetoric.
Of that first album there’s The Mother We Share and (oh lord, be still my pulsating pelvis) Lies (“I can call you up/If I feel alone/I can feed your dirty mind”). That second album had Never Ending Circles. Hell, even the third album – scientifically agreed to be ‘The Crap One’ – had the beautiful Your Enemy. Whether they’re the greatest or most important band of the last decade is of course debatable, but – bah gahd! – I don’t think any other artist released so many stone cold bangers.
But, maybe it’s recency bias, but I’m naming a song from their last album, the epic, emotive, stirring, fist clenchingly anthemic duet with Robert Smith.
(Shit… should I have picked Lies…?)
Part of Julie Campbell’s ‘Audenshaw Trilogy’, which we should all be extremely thankful exists. Lonelady release an album roughly once every five years, and I am always here for it.
26 Carly Rae Jaap Stam: Run Away With Me
Baby!
Take me!
To that!
Feeling!
Suicide is impossible in a world where this exists (post 17th July 2015).
no songs list in 2014, #15 in 2019
I think Spoon simply perfected rock music in the last ten years with this. And they did so with a song that sounds like it’s clattering uncontrollably down the stairs. Rent I Pay is out of control, it has no grounding, no frame, it’s just crashing straight out of the box and scattering all over the floor. It’s untamed, it’s unmoored, it could fall apart and kill everyone involved at any second. It’s a complete accident of science that this song even exists. And we should be grateful for this miracle.
Sweet Jesus, the mirror opposite to Rent I Pay, every single detail of Find Me was obviously planned meticulously. Hey Siri, how do you make a perfect rock song? Start with a good drum? then have the lead guitar play a cyclical melody? Have the rhythm guitar announce itself in bursts? Before the bass guitar comes in and the song really comes together? Then do you drop out most of the instruments during the verses so that the choruses hit that much harder? Oh, and near the end, should you make all instruments silent except the lead guitar for one last go around before everything comes crashing back in for another chorus? Yeah, sounds cool.
It’s shameless and manipulative. Is it really that easy to pander to the inner shredding of pathetic middle aged rock fans??
Yes. Yes it is.
“Is it the Chorus yet?”
“No, it’s just the building of the verse
So when the chorus does come, it’ll be more rewarding.”
Firstly: (sic)
Secondly, I almost went for Can’t Cool Me Down, which is one of the greatest slowburn rock songs of recent years. If you’ve never heard it before… Yeah, maybe don’t sound so hot on first listen, I know. Trust me. Listen to it another hundred or so times, you’ll finally realise what a piece of genius it is. However, as the lead single from the criminally underwhelming ‘Making a Door Less Open‘ album, I can never quite get over how angry I am at them for dropping the ball so badly after I’d crowned them one of the greatest acts in the world.
So Bodys (sic) it is! This time not as the amazing outlier on a stinker of an album, but as one of the highlights of one of the greatest and most conceptually perfect rock albums of all time. No biggie. Seriously, you nerds, just got for anything off that album, go for Nervous Young Inhumans, go for the thirteen minutes Beach Life-In-Death, go for the sixteen minute Famous Prophets (stars). My friend, it’s all good, and we’re blessed to be in the same universe where it exists.
These are the people that I get drunk with
These are the people that I fell in love with
These are the people that I get drunk with
These are the people that I fell in love withWell, so what?
We’re young
We’re thin (most of us)
We’re alive (most of us)
I often just curl up inside this song like a wounded dear. Each line is like fine shavings of my very soul.
Oh, and it fucking slaps.
no music list in 2014
The fuck did this come from? A snarling, vicious, growling rock death threat. Like the dankest, dingiest parts of the Mississippi Delta were transported to Bury and the band were not pleased about it.
And elbow were, what, a million years old when they made this?? They weren’t finished either – they also released White Noise White Heat in 2019, an equally bracing song, and by that point they were, like, a million years older!
Fuck’s going on down in Bury?!
Little Caesar’s never sendin’ pizza out ya’ll way
Papa Johns never get delivered where y’all stayed
The Ghetto was a physical manifestation of hate
And a place where ethnicity determines your placement
A place that defines your station
Remind you niggas your place is the basement
White people in the attic
Niggas selling dope, White people is the addicts
White folks act like they ain’t show us how to traffic
All that dope to China, you don’t call that trappin’?
Serious question: is this the great forgotten rap song of the last decade? Lyrically, musically, melody wise… It’s a fucking behemoth and I’m seriously baffled why we aren’t all still talking about this as an alltimer.
It’s actually incredibly unfair (and, let’s be honest, grossly ableist) that I’m expected to pick one song from the thematically perfect 22, A Million album. They’re all amazing, but I guess at a push I’m going to have to go with the one that goes “I heeeeard about it. BOOM-BA-BOOM! Kzzz-ka-kzz-kzz”.
#5 in 2021
‘Jesus lord’ indeed…
That debate isn’t happening here, I’ll just say that I’m not quite ready to disregard some of the most important, influential and best music of the last ten years. ‘Yeezus’ was released one month after my injury, which everyone agrees was a masterpiece (and I guess I could have put Black Skinhead here…). His next album was ‘Life of Pablo‘, which some people (incorrectly) say is a masterpiece, and we all agree that it at least had moments of inspiration such as Waves. After that… the consensus starts to fall apart in tandem with Kanye’s grip on reality and his own public perception. I rated ‘Ye’, and especially thank it for introducing me to 070 Shake on Ghost Town, but I was probably in the minority.
After that, everyone was generally in agreement: his artistic output mostly became a sewage system of unfettered shite. His ‘gospel’ album ‘Jesus Is Goated With the Sauce‘ in particular I consider a crime against humanity. There were two ‘Donda’ albums but, eugh, the guy obviously doesn’t give a shit and it’s near offensive that he expects people to pay for his bullshit.
But then… on that first ‘Donda’ album… there’s Jesus Lord… and you almost want to forgive him for his general shittiness…
You don’t, of course. The guy’s a fucking embarrassment. But something is still there…
no songs list in 2013
Hey, listen, calm down. This is a safe space. In this room, we don’t need to pretend that Wrecking Ball somehow isn’t one of the greatest pop songs of all time.
Perhaps the oldest song on this list (although… we’ll get into it later), released in August 2013, when I would have still been at Salford Hospital but perhaps already in the knowledge that I’d be soon be moving onto Sheffield Spinal Injuries Unit.
If you’re too young to remember (who am I kidding? The only people who read my blog are middle aged Manics fans), Miley Cyrus was truthfully all anyone wanted to talk about in 2013, only ten years ago when still the most scandalous thing that a woman could do was claim some agency over her own sexuality. And Miley was a genius, she created such a brilliantly over the top characterisation of a ‘sexy’ popstar that was obviously designed solely for the controversy. See, Miley was never actually sexy – concerned protectors of Judeo Christian values may have wrung their hands thinking of the children, but there was nobody on the other side of the coin who was uncontrollably turned on by the whole persona. Ain’t nobody cracking one off to Cyrus’s insanely OTT performance at the 2013 VMAs. OK, maybe some people are, but there are people who will crack one out to literally anything, so it’s difficult to get a decent sample.
Oh, and I’m a white person. That VMA performance was the first time I’d ever heard the verb ‘to twerk’.
And Wrecking Ball came in all the middle of this, it was the single that Miley was supporting when she set conservative America’s brains on fire during the VMAs. And the video furthered the meme. She tongues a sledgehammer like it’s a big fat cock (subtext, you might have missed it. I did Media Studies at college), and the image of Miley swinging naked atop an actual wrecking ball was memed into infinity. Remember that Ron Jeremy one? That aged well. At the time (and maybe to this day…?) Ron Jeremy was about a thousand times more respected than Miley Cyrus. And, if we’re being honest, roughly 95% of all women.
Nearly a decade on, away from the ‘scandal’, away from the think pieces, away from the entire world chiding the sexual self-determination of a twenty year old woman, we can look back and simply concede… Christ, that was a bit of a banger, wasn’t it?
High drama, pristine vocal performance, a melody that would stand tall if you flew a plane into it: How many greater pop ballads have there been in this or any other decade?
16 Let’s Eat Grandma: Falling Into Me
Absolute Necessary Evil legends, with all three of their albums finishing in the top ten. They actually finished first in the Legit Bosses 2016 with the extraordinary explosion of enthusiastic creativity that is Eat Shiitake Mushrooms. And in a way they’ll never be able to recapture that thrill of the new that they had when they were just two 16 year old girls exploring their own artistic impulses. I was originally a bit disappointed in their second album, because I struggled to get past the fact that the band wouldn’t just be those same gonzo psychedelic teenagers. However, I’ve since been able to get past that and appreciate what a towering sonic achievement it is, and how Falling Into Me is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of the sounds in their head.
Big shout out to SOPHIE as well, and another sad entry to the death list. She’s not on this countdown literally (I just felt that Faceshopping might ruin the flow somewhat), but considering her influence on Let’s Eat Grandma (she produced two tracks on this album and her influence is obvious) and other artists like Charli XCX means she’s absolutely on this countdown in spirit,
only #63 in 2016?? Why do I hide my love??
Yeah, had to make sure the curtains were shut for that one…
Uh-oh… time for Real Talk. I hate Real Talk. Please sit down. Forget about Kid Cudi. Definitely forget about Kanye West.
I know I’ve said that this list isn’t made up of songs that somehow relate to my experiences, that it was simply going to be the 101 biggest slapnuts of the past ten years. Well… some songs can be both.
When I’m at my best, I love Reborn as a gorgeous and precious examination of someone’s wellbeing, attached to a gorgeous hook and with stellar production. When I’m at my worst, I relate to it, which is always the worst thing you can do with a piece of art. I realise that I am the song’s protagonist, continuously trying to convince myself that I’m so, I’m so reborn. That I keep moving forward. It’s a song about what you tell the world. It’s a song about the lies you tell yourself.
Sometimes I tell myself that I’m ‘reborn’ and it’s the truth! I have moved on! I have a job and a flat now! I have a huge telly!
But working on these Disability Decade Celebrations… There’s a lot of trauma still there. I worry that I’ve actually not dealt with any of it, really. I’m not truly ‘reborn‘, I’ve just learned the mask to wear to convince other people that I’m OK. To convince myself.
But I’m not, am I? I have the ability now. I have that choice. There’s always a worm at the heart of my existence. I know the choice exists. I’ve almost been there.
Wow, that was a bit of a tonal shift from me singing SIA, wasn’t it? Fuck, is it a happy song next…?
Oh, lordy lou, is it ever!
I do my makeup in somebody else’s car. We order different drinks at the same bar.
Sorry, but does this all seem a bit iconic to you? Yeah? Anyone else? Getting a big iconic whiff around here.
This is pop music at its most pure. This is the sound of joy, the sound of self-actualisation. This is art that can fully envelop you, completely encasing your soul.
And shit, Lorde released Royals in the timeframe as well!! We have no choice but to stan.
no song list in 2014
I know, big shock this song made it, right?
#3 in 2016
Listen, 99% of punk rock is absolute trash, throwing shapes and aping late 70s Camden like they’re at a Sex Pistols cosplay convention, adding absolutely nothing to the genre and becoming the kind of establishment yacht rock that punk originally set out to destroy.
Ah fuck, when they get it right though? Fuck me dead and bury me pregnant. It’s Laura Jane Grace, it has to be, she’s the secret sauce.
“I just want to say the words to someone
Like I used to say the words
[pause]
To you”
That emotionally devastates me every time I hear it. It’s not right. I need to alert the authorities.
10 Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Nothing Left But Their Names
Just me? Listen, if it’s not for you, fine, move along. Only the real ones get it.
Yeah, I know. Number 2 of 2022 just over three months ago. Losing out to Running With the Hurricane. That song finished at #54 on this list. A lot of shit can change in three months.
I just wasn’t being emotionally honest when I didn’t name this song #1. This is the sound of my soul. This is my soul. I wrote a 130’000 word memoir, but I could just play this song. Yeah we talk in past tense, reminisce about back when our spirits used to dance with each other.
I know nothing. I know it though.
Oh, and having already given Shake two albums of the year for the first time, I didn’t want her just devouring all the records by becoming the first artist to have both album and song of the year.
Mostly the first. Honest.
#19 in 2021
I just… can’t… This was already an impossibly poignant piece of perfectly poised sadness, but now??
Fuck, man, add another one to the death list 😔
Yes. yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. More proof that, in today’s world, we will always need Lil Nas X.
Riding on a tractor
Lean all in my bladder
Cheated on my baby
You can go and ask her
Lil Nas X did the opposite of join the death list. Old Town Road was the greatest one hit wonder of all time that somehow wasn’t a one hit wonder. Lil Nas X built on the most inspirational and feelgood musical story of the decade to make himself an international treasure. we must protect Lil Nas X at all costs.
Can’t nobody tell him nothing.
6 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: I Need You
#26 in 2016… TWENTY fucking SIX??? Strong year
Fucking hell, Nick, do you mind? You’re kind of harshing the buzz.
no songs list in 2013, #7 in 2019
She eats her dinner in the bathtub, then she goes to sex clubs and watches freaky people get it on. #Relatable, ammi right?
OK, maybe I’m being a little naughty with this one. Originally released in March 2013, when I was able bodies and absolutely not able minded, trying to get high, all the time, to get things off my mind (uwu-u-oo). However, it was then rereleased in December 2013, when I was a pathetic invalid back at my Mum’s house looking forward to my first Christmas as a disabled person. And drinking hard. Trying to stay drunk, all the time, to keep the misery of my life off my mind (uwu-u-oo).
But that’s something, isn’t it? One of the greatest pop songs ever about clouding your misery with narcotics (and there is some tough competition on that list!) soundtracked my own slow death of despair when I was both able bodied and on my way to self-destruction, and also when I I was drowning myself in toxins seven months later as a disabled guy, because it was basically the only thing my body allowed me to do.
Oh, and to further complicate matters, I didn’t even hear it until 2019, by which time I was sober for many years! It didn’t actually soundtrack shit!
My God though, what a Titanic sized song.
Boom. Bap. Doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-ba-ba.
Perfect pop music doesn’t need a back story. It doesn’t need you to attach your soul to its lyrics, it doesn’t need to be about you. It can just be perfect. And such beauty, such magic created with seemingly so few ingredients, can just make you remember that such good exists.
Dudes, I have written at length about one of the greatest pieces of recorded art that you’re likely to ever hear. If you don’t get it by now, that’s on you.
Remember when they used to say she looked too mannish?
Y’all can’t stand it, y’all can’t ban it, made out like a bandit.
This song is just… exhilarating. The forcefulness, the flow, the lyrics, the dynamism. And we have to take that video into the context as well, the style, the choreography and the unashamed politics of it all make Django Jane and event song that I think has only been equaled by the cultural weight of Beyoncé’s entire ‘Lemonade’ album.
There simply had to be a Janelle Monae song on this list. Despite only releasing two albums during the time period, she always towers over this blog and my musical taste like the Necessary Evil icon that she’s always been. And though her hit rate is unreal, there was only ever going to be one choice. Django Jane still shakes my nervous system each and every time I hear it to this day, and instills elation in me that has never weakened over the years.
If she the GOAT would anybody doubt it?
Well… duh…
I’m sure the megafans will forgive such an obvious choice.
OK, I’m going to try and not get all TMI and emotional about this, and if I do then you can always go back to that video of me singing to SIA, OK?
The Hotelier are a very special band for me. A very important band for me.
At the end of 2016 I was in an especially low place. My discovery of cheap LSA (we’ll talk later, I promise) had brought me to a spectacular high, I had published two books that year, and working on a third. I was so confident that I’d cured my own depression that I stopped taking my antidepressants. Then my disability benefits were stopped. And I came down hard. I can’t remember if suicide was ever seriously considered, but I definitely confided in friends that I was planning to cut my own leg off so that I could get the freedom of £200 a week disability benefits.
I discovered the Hotelier’s life changing third album ‘Goodness‘ just when I was starting to put my life back together. I know it was correlation rather than causation (probably…) but Hotelier became the soundtrack to my recovery. Their emotional intelligence and honesty really inspiring me to find similar traits in myself. They took me to emotional highs and lows while also providing a safety net.
Then it was announced that they’d be playing a gig in Manchester in December 2017 supporting Cloud Nothing. Who are Cloud Nothing? I honestly don’t remember, and I never truly cared. This would be my first gig since becoming disabled. My first time going out. Into Manchester. On my own.
I wrote about it at length. I made it to the gig. It was a near religious experience. Then, they played Soft Animal, already my favourite song of theirs.
At the chorus, Christian steps up to the microphone.
“Makes me feel alive! Makes me feel like I don’t have to die!”
I burst out crying.
No other song ever had a chance, did it?
I’d love to do a detailed breakdown of the stats, but I wrote this post for around five hours on Saturday, ten hours Sunday/yesterday, and around five hours today (do you know how many hours total that is?? No, serious question, I’m really struggling with the maths) and I have many more things to publish this week, so will you please just let me rest?? I might come back to it at a future date when I’m less pressed for time. Seriously, there’s nome awesome statistic in there, but I haven’t even done the stats for last year’s best albums yet, so let’s just put it on the ‘to-do’ list. I will breakdown the years though. Before I count: it has to be 2016, right??
2013: 2
2014: 9
2015: 9
2016: 17
2017: 9
2018: 17
2019: 11
2020: 11
2021: 11
2022: 4
2023: 1
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