my favorite songs this year none from my favorite albums no white rappers except one sort of

20. Faye Webster “Thinking About You”
Faye Does Sky Blue Sky is an irresistible pitch. Liner notes offer no proof of Nels Cline (on this song), however the simulacrum is convincing. I prefer her as the patron saint of unmet longing (here, “Flowers,” “Dream with a Baseball Player”) to the Girl in Love, I hope that’s ok

19. Christopher Owens “I Think About Heaven”
“I Think About Heaven” Brought Back the Feeling—a California-blue-sky guitar tone that places me at 21, that helped me realize the most basic reaction to something as monumental as death (I, too, have thought about heaven after losing someone) is the most powerful and affirming one, thinking a rock band named Girls was the logical endpoint for rock and roll and maybe they were and we’re living in their shadow, like how Twin Peaks: The Return made prestige tv obsolete but seven years later we’re huddled in front of the tv Sunday nights pretending mass commercial culture has anything left to offer as we abandon Real Life Situations for a steady diet of gambling apps, alcoholic seltzers, and opt-in surveillance. My heart has always belonged to greasy-haired weirdos and freaks working through grief and demons for similar souls, play “Hellhole Ratrace” at my funeral, at every millennial’s funeral

18. Clara La San/DJ Candlestick/OG Ron C “Another Night” (Chopnotslop Remix)
Immaculate vibes

17. The Marías “Run Your Mouth”
Submarine is a dense record that turns the screws on their Sneaker Pimps-indebted sound into something bespoke and beguiling while appealing to TikTokers, but its Pop Moment is the song I prefer, existing on the same playlist as “Lady” and Dirty Vegas

16. Lola Brooke/Bryson Tiller “You”
I will go deeper on this later but female/male R&B/rap taught me how to love every summer

15. NewJeans “How Sweet”
I was wrecked when I read this band is strictly for people in their thirties, but, that is me, I am a person in my thirties, don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos

14. Stone Cold Jizzle/Tisakorean “Dos XX”
This is three hooks stacked on each other then played again as a victory lap

13. Sadboi “Slide”
Back in the day we could go down to the store and order tacos two for a dollar, things were so easy then, so accessible, so pure

12. Bb trickz “Miss Rackz”
Brat starts in fits and stops, bangers next to languid motifs where her songwriting falters a little, there’s endless ways to dissect that album—which made the more propulsive Brat and it’s Completely Different but it’s Also Still Brat such a revelation, the vision I prefer. I’m saying this because that is how I discovered Bb trickz and that is how I found out her smoke too tough her swag too different her bitch too bad

11. Tommy Richman “Million Dollar Baby”
My skepticism nullified after the nth replay, “nu-Jon B cyberfunk flow” is a seemingly AI-generated string of words that is 100% My Shit unfortunately, throw the Funkmaster diss/pr stunt, Wingstop commercial, unlistenable album, obnoxious interviews to the side, I’m not too cool when the least cool person does something cool and evades all my defenses. “I ain't never rep a set” is refreshingly honest from a white entertainer, this will be the song people think of when they think of 2024 in five years granted the country is still standing

10. Vampire Weekend “Classical”
Somewhere Kate McKinnon is still dressed as Hillary, in another universe brat summers and coconut trees were checkered flags and witnessing endless examples of white liberal cringe at a Día de los Muertos festival was forgivable in a few days time instead of an embarrassing timestamp, here and now Father of the Bride is this band’s nadir, fake-based and overlong in a way all things from 2019 are blandly, offensively innocent, theoretical, and self-involved. The educated and elite class have always known/will always know what to do (see Dobbs and how an intended side effect to this country’s hatred of women is manufacturing a lower class it can spit up, throw away, imprison, kill, send to war, etc). I took Twitter off my phone over the summer for the first time ever and it dramatically improved my life, but to be real the reason I was able to do it so easily was because it was already in decline, had already been bought sold stripped salted hallowed out left a husk of itself and it meant nothing to me to lose it

9. ilham “uhm…ok?”
Sexy drill has its unexpected avant-garde moment, as audacious as Shudder to Think on a major label. In this world of pay-to-play [allegedly] On the Radar and From the Block freestyles and Debordian Drake appearances on rightwing streamers rap music can still surprise befuddle thrill all at once. Not everything I mentioned is Bad in the same way but in the context of gamifying culture there is sickness and rot in endless stream, in having to meet every new experience with cynicism, in subterfuging audiences into passive fascism. A good vocal melody carries even the wackiest beats, no one pushed it like her

8. Camila Cabello/Playboi Carti “I LUV IT”
When you throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, the visible streaks are El Guincho’s cascading synth line when Carti starts rapping, one of the few armhair-raising moments in music this year

7. Lomiiel “HAY LUPITA”

6. Ezale “Fun”
If not in length but in vibes and joy this is a triumphant spiritual sequel to “Five Minutes of Funktown”

5. Mighty Bay/Tisakorean/Three “Whiteboy Wasted”
I liked Tisakorean’s albums this year but neither of them had a song I wanted to play as many times in a row as this—“if I hit your line that mean you a freak” is up there with “she wasn’t talmbout it so she got the voicemail” in phone-based one-liners about hooking up. I’ve never been in a bar full of people drinking Twisted Tea until this year [neutral but curious]; I still think dressing like a Sears mannequin is getting a fit off [what else am I going to do wear big ass stupid pants ugly gorpcore sneakers some ridiculous $400 jacket?]; I mean, have you seen them, how cool they look? [I miss home the most when I see these guys dancing at gas stations]; this is real culture

4. Clairo “Juna”
Following in The Greatest’s footsteps of White Girl Sings the Blues to unexpected success, but she’s also doing Mort Garson on the margins so it doesn’t slip into appropriation or karaoke, a song as Dani said you can live inside of

3. J.P. “Bad Bitty”

hey

HUH

B O W

2. Erika de Casier/They Hate Change “ice”
Not to feed the false gender binary but women singing and men rapping on the same song has always been my favorite type of love song, has always communicated something intrinsically shared about affection, sensuality, and cockiness. Well, it’s not a binary but a spectrum. This has informed my ideas about love and where I exist vis-à-vis attachment and sexuality theories more than any other dynamic in art. I love her vocal fry I love the swagger in “what you mean you don’t want me no more?” I love the poetics of “only two seasons where I come from/spring and summer” I love how deep the bass is. Early Y2K nostalgia has already worn out its welcome but this captures what it felt like to be alive in 2002 when real love appeared on BET Uncut and late-night music video blocks on MTV2

1. wolfacejoeyy “cake”
Do you love the music you loved in high school or did you love being young? If “sexy drill” is about marrying those beats to blue and delirious bars (already a thrilling combination), this song and wolfacejoeyy’s record, valentino, push it to a higher level. He brings smooth R&B vocals and earnest songwriting to a dance-forward hip-hop genre with staggering results. I’ve always loved a tender groove.

“cake” doesn’t answer or ask any big questions, but how it perfects an emerging sound reminds me of how I felt about “Turn on the Lights” or “oui.” Those are big names and big shoes but the solo walks and drives I spent rapping “you could swing my way/we could hop up in a coupe/or we could go to outer space” to myself is equal to the number of times I lost my mind hearing those songs in public ten-plus years ago, repeatedly injecting myself with a dopamine high.

I didn’t go out enough this year to say with confidence “this bangs at the club” but I did witness a DJ drop “Fisherrr” at a community arts center and hear an elderly couple complain about the obscenity, a win in my book. I still search for how good, loud music transforms a space. The most fun time out I had this year was a disco night which would usually be Not My Thing but the dancefloor was, as they say, a movie; amidst the museums churches and cemeteries I didn’t even hear music in Paris; I was never a “club kid;” but drinking while listening to loud music with people outside always serves as a salve. One thing about me is I’mma go out—but how much longer do I need these types of songs in my life?

I want to be out and be around young people dancing as long as I can call myself young without a modifier (I think that ends at 40). I listen to “cake” and pretend I am the DJ. Songs where people rap and sing on the same track taught me how to express love, then how to socialize; now, through the conduit of people around 15 years younger than me, they are teaching me how to age, how to remain confident and joyful in my skin. joey has that undefinable “it” that reaches across ages, genders, taste—it triggers the same instincts that had me in the pit in 2014 except now I nod my head quietly at home behind a keyboard or on the train to work. Am I essentially saying this buoyant, lovesick, rakish rap song revolutionized my perception of bodies and spaces? Ok, yeah, for sure.