25. Billie Eilish — Oxytocin
You wouldn’t be the first to think ‘Oxytocin’ sounds like an outlier on Happier Than Ever. As the last song written for Billie’s sophomore record, the high-paced, electronic track clashes severely with most of the softer, slower, more introspective ballads included already. It doesn’t help that the song is littered with references to her much darker-sounding debut: there’s an invitation to God herself, a subtle callback to ‘all the good girls go to hell’ and an unrelenting, sinister outro that drew immediate parallels to ‘bad guy’ on release night.
Maybe the sonic similarity is there, but there’s no denying that this track is a maturation of Billie’s songwriting. And I don’t mean just content-wise, even though this is the most explicit song she’s released. If the risque lyrics in ‘bad guy’ were a role that Billie was trying on, then ‘Oxytocin’ feels much more grounded in reality, as it narrates the details of a mutually destructive hookup. The writing here strikes a perfect balance of menacing and enticing, with a delivery that’s both dominating and desperate. It’s the perfect formula for an album highlight, accentuated by its usage of the “love hormone”. When Billie croons “You know I need you for the oxytocin” over a beat not unlike of that of heightened heartbeat, it initially seems like she’s diminishing her lover’s worth as only a means to provide pleasure. It’s a fair conclusion; oxytocin does play a major role in sex and orgasm. But its main function is for social bonding — it peaks when you’re with someone you have a deep connection to, such as a long-term partner. What appears on the surface as a superficial fling may actually be an encounter with a person that Billie needs on a level beyond just physical. And on album about the difficulties of separating yourself from a complicated past relationship, this song no longer seems so out of place.
She couldn’t have framed this track any better; like its namesake chemical, this song’s got a positive feedback loop. One listen and you’ll definitely want to hear it again and again. — cremeebrulee
24. Mitski — The Only Heartbreaker
What do you do when you’ve become a master at your genre? The answer is simple. You go pop! On this track Mitski sings of painful acceptance and wishes for an imperfect lover, while accompanied with some of the most upbeat and fun production of the year. ‘The Only Heartbreaker’’s release came as a shock to many. After the release of dark and gloomy Working For The Knife, fans of the indie rock artist expected her to continue down the road of her previous albums, and what a shock they got here. This song is literally 80s synthwave inspired pop. I could never tell you how Mitski made such a jump, but she did, and I couldn’t ask for more. Also just a little shout-out to the amazing music video to accompany this. The symbolism wrapped up in the short runtime is genuinely impressive, and I urge everyone who reads this to check it out. As one of my personal songs of the year, I’m so glad to see the rest of the subreddit agrees with me. Happy listening! — UselessTacooo
23. Kero Kero Bonito — The Princess and the Clock
Can’t really think of any other songs in the past decade that you could call a children’s fairy tale, let alone one this lyrically packed.
It’s a loose connection, but it reminds me of their earlier song ‘Time Today’ from 2018; both songs involve profound conflicts with time. ‘Time Today’ sees an adult with a lot of time, seeking to seize the day yet being held back by their seeming lack of hopes and dreams. As a parallel, ‘The Princess and the Clock’ sees a child stuck in time (’n’ place) and unable to age, seeking to be free and pursue their hopes and dreams.
I like how the narrator never, aside from dialogue, refers to or treats the child as a princess (the lyric is “High up in a chamber”, NOT “High up in her chamber”); that same exalted title is exactly what inhibited her growth. I also appreciate the tried and true theme of one’s childlike wonder and artistic spirit never fading away even as time passes by, mirroring how KKB have matured lyrically and musically while preserving their whimsical touch.
Musically speaking, it’s a prettier patchwork than anything they’ve previously made. You can find an easy reference point in Porter Robinson’s work this year (‘Musician’ features vocals from Sarah Bonito!), which also operated in the same aesthetic cloud of childlike whimsy and anthemic choruses. You can spot some traces of Grimes’ ‘World Princess Part II’ in its bitpop influence and percussion.
You can sense the lineage of indie anthems outlining the “Oh, ooh, oh” melody. You can admire the skittering syncopated percussion granting the song a little more buoyancy. You can detect each little detail that subtly accentuates the story; notice the faintly surreal sound effects after “before she felt any fear” or the quiet rising scale right after the phrase “she heard an island call”, like a siren pulling the girl’s ship to danger.
The humble indie producers behind ‘It’s Bugsnax!’ have really come a long way. — ExtraEater
22. Japanese Breakfast — Paprika
Zauner forays into a whimsical realm — her vision for this song being an imaginary parade, titled after the 2006 anime film that’s centered around the concept of dreaming. The ability to convey your emotions to a world of people through music and resonate with them yields the feeling of untouchable contentment. ‘Paprika’ is the thesis of Jubilee; every word is sung with a powerful sense of gratitude — in a world recovering from a devastating illness, a song that radiates such vibrant positivity is what everyone needs to hear. — OliviaGodrigo
21. CHVRCHES — How Not To Drown (feat. Robert Smith)
As a casual fan of CHVRCHES, I’ve always associated them with brightness and light. CHVRCHES have of course written about serious topics, but their biggest hits (‘The Mother We Share’, ‘Clearest Blue’) are often lively and glimmering. Lauren Mayberry’s high, bell-like voice supports gorgeous, soaring melodies adorned with sparkly synths. If it’s not happiness, exactly, then it’s certainly confidence and hope.
The first pre-release for CHVRCHES’ 2021 album Screen Violence (‘He Said She Said’) was like that, and it released to good reception. But the second pre-release — ‘How Not To Drown’ — is something new entirely. Perhaps their darkest single yet, ‘How Not To Drown’ is about depression, burnout, and disillusionment with fame. This is accentuated by a significant sonic shift for the band as well: there is no sparkle here, and while Lauren’s voice is clear as ever, she trades off with Robert Smith (most famous for being the frontman of The Cure, and one of CHVRCHES’ Ian Doherty’s “all time music hero[es]”), whose more world-weary, somber tone gives gravitas and a sense of experience to the song.
As (again) a mostly-casual listener, these changes surprised me…and then they floored me. It helps that the song is really, really good: it’s addictive. While the melody doesn’t soar like other CHVRCHES songs, it’s just as catchy. And even though the song embraces darkness, it never allows darkness to overwhelm it. There is still a resilience to it. The band may have been down — but they survived. They’re still here. — bigbigbee
19. WILLOW — t r a n s pa r e n t s o u l (feat. Travis Barker)
Although I don’t know if anyone saw this pivot coming, in retrospect it kind of seems like it was inevitable. Willow has always had rock influences, whether it’s through her grainy vocals reminiscent of grunge rock, or her references like shouting out Kurt Cobain on her song ‘Time Machine’, so it should’ve been more obvious in the year of pop punk having a mainstream revival through other starlets like Olivia and Billie, that Willow would be right there with them to not only cement her place as an incredible, genre defying artist in her own right, but to remind us that punk and rock music was and will always be a black genre.
’t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l’, with it’s head banging production and goofy ass title spacing, became a pretty immediate hit with gen z, with Willow being somewhat of a darling to people my age I’ve found, only further cemented by other hits like ‘Wait A Minute!’ and the inescapable ‘Meet Me At Our Spot’. Lyrically I’ve seen some mixed takes on transparent soul, but I adore it, I think it so perfectly captures the messy angst that pop punk is all about, and Willow’s vocal delivery of lines like ”All your little fake friends will sell your secrets for some cash” is perfect. Of course, the song would be nothing without Travis Barker’s amazing production too; I find that the song sounds beautifully polished while still feeling dark and punk, which is a real feat. Overall they make for an amazing duo and the song was such a moment when it came out, it really made me so happy to see so many of my friends and peers streaming it and paying attention to Willow, and following on from 2020’s The Anxiety and 2021’s lately i feel EVERYTHING, I cannot wait to see what the future brings for Willow’s music. — Awkward_King
“WILLOW — t r a n s pa r e n t s o u l (feat. Travis Barker)”
18. Magdalena Bay — You Lose!
2021 was a big year for Magdalena Bay, the duo of Mica Tenenbaum and Matt Lewin. After 2020 saw tours with Kero Kero Bonito and Yumi Zouma cancelled due to the pandemic, the band regained its momentum and then some. Magdalena Bay built a small but dedicated fanbase over years of single releases, mini mixes and EPs. With the release of their debut album Mercurial World came a new wave of attention and critical acclaim.
In ‘You Lose!’, a fan favourite on Mercurial World and all too relevant to the experience of the pandemic, Mica sings of the challenges of trying to make it in music and the feeling that time for success is running out. ‘You Lose!’ is melodramatic, heavy and distorted, with a driving drum beat and guitar strum creating a wall of sound that builds to a crescendo in the final chorus under the weight of layers of compression. The instrumental is built around the video game sounds that give the song its name, with a spiralling ‘game over!’ sound effect and 8-bit sounds evoking strong feelings of nostalgia.
On the release of the song, the band said “Sometimes you win but most times you lose!”. Many artists have written about losing, a universally relatable sentiment. ‘You Lose!’ balances the specific and the general to create a track that offers catharsis to anyone feeling the same feeling. — theburningundead
17. Magdalena Bay — Secrets (Your Fire)
From their creative and comprehensive use of social media to their GeoCities-inspired aesthetics, Magdalena Bay have built up an identity as being very ‘online’. For the most part this isn’t reflected in their lyrical content, however ‘Secrets (Your Fire)’ explores the universal online experience of asking ‘How much of myself should I put out there?’. The track is performed with a playful coyness, enchanted by the immediacy of virtual connection but apprehensive of the vulnerability it brings. “I don’t wanna tell you everything about me / I don’t wanna feed more oxygen to your fire” slinks vocalist Mica Tenenbaum. Just as playful is its instrumentation, a rollicking mix of bright synths, G-funk whistles, orchestra hits and vocal samples. ‘Secrets’ — like much of its album Mercurial World — doesn’t deal in details, preferring to revel in mystique. And when the mystique is this enthralling, where’s the fun in knowing it all? — Travo
16. Tinashe — Bouncin
If there’s one word to describe ‘Bouncin’, it would be ‘divine’. Tinashe inhabits the track with seductive poise, gliding with an assuredness that doesn’t command attention so much as basks in knowing it’s all hers. “I been sendin’ dirty pics, hope they make it to the cloud / Watch it bouncin’ on the ground” she purrs atop a dreamy synth-streaked pulse, her presence a centrepiece on a crowded dance floor. Yet however flirtatious and intimate she gets there is a precious spectacle to her performance, like a jewel you would rather admire than touch. Like what could be is secondary to this very moment. — Travo
15. Lorde — Mood Ring
In a Guardian interview in mid-2021, Lorde mentions some of the influences that came about while putting together Solar Power as a record — Natalie Imbruglia, Natasha Bedingfield, All Saints. No track on the album really takes these references as overtly as ‘Mood Ring’, the third offering from the album. In retrospect, the album as a whole didn’t really live up to those promises but it does feel like every specific song reference from the late 90s and early 00s from ‘Torn’, ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’, ‘Pure Shores’, Spice Girls’ ‘Viva Forever’, Donna Lewis’ ‘I Love You Always Forever’ ended up solely within ‘Mood Ring’ in individual elements. “Don’t you think the early 2000s seem so far away?” the song literally says a minute in, after all. There’s even touches of TLC perhaps, probably the closest Lorde (and Jack Antonoff) has delved into the world of R&B. Despite many’s distain for Solar Power’s total pivot away from what many enjoyed about Lorde’s previous albums, it does end up being a mode Lorde takes on well and naturally at many points on the record and especially on ‘Mood Ring’. In some respects, ‘Mood Ring’ really surprisingly close to Lorde’s earlier lyrical output — she has always been both social commentator yet participant of the issues she critiques — but with the stories of teenage vices now replaced by wellness culture, which does feel like a natural fit for her. Wellness culture and the participation in it particularly for millennials as Lorde grows into her mid-20s acts as a proxy for our insecurities and existential problems with the world, as ‘Mood Ring’ nods to (“I’m tryna get well from the inside”, “I just wanna know, will it be alright?”, “The whole world is letting me down”). It would verge on unpalatable if it were delivered solely with acerbic bite, but there’s sympathy and solidarity as she plays it away to the sound of our 00s nostalgia. — Rai
14. Caroline Polachek — Bunny is a Rider
For 2021, a year characterized by the motif of half-baked comebacks, one notable surprise was introducing us to the mythos of Bunny. Who was Bunny? Why, surely a rider, of course; but besides being the titular character of Caroline Polachek’s follow-up single to her 2019 debut Pang, the answer feels elusive. For three minutes, we chase Bunny through a forest of disjointed bass rifts, tropical percussion, and sampled infant voices, each cryptic verse thrown back at the listener with the nonchalance of a discarded banana peel.
It isn’t until the chorus does it seem the haze clears so slightly. Caroline’s signature key-shattering vocals wail into the abyss, reciting a chant of self-assurance. “I’m so non-physical; I do, I do feel like a lady, I do, I do,” she slows down to proclaim. “I do, I do — but don’t drop my name.” And with what can be imagined as a wink, off again we go, more quick-spitting vocals luring us to another trip down the rabbit hole.
For a song with such disorienting imagery, and with production that feels both taped-together and squeaky clean at the same time, it feels like a conglomeration of conflicted feelings. Perhaps we’re meant to listen and feel as though we’re endlessly grabbing for a carrot on a stick, desperate to reach an end of the painful immaterial. Or maybe we’re allowed to tune out the absurd and just like, groove to those funky whistles. However we cope, and wherever the theme finds us, we should all agree on one objective, meaningful fact: that Bunny, in all their enchantment, is quite a rider. — SirAhNo
13. Olivia Rodrigo — brutal
Sour begins with its most sour note, being so drenched in overwhelming brattiness and a laundry list of complaints. The orchestral strings play into the humor of the song where Rodrigo pries every aspect of her life and identifies issues within every fiber of her existence. The lyrics may seem bold for a Disney employee, but Olivia unloading all of her social grievances into a two and a half minute song was exactly the statement she needed to convey about herself to her audience. Everyone’s teenage years truly are, like, messy. — OliviaGodrigo
12. Taylor Swift — All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
Sacred prayer and we’d swear
to remember it all too well
‘All Too Well’ has been pointed to as Taylor Swift’s magnum opus ever since its release. The original 5-minute track is filled with biting and sharp remarks, telling the story of a bittersweet relationship after its end. The bridge has been called her best; “so casually cruel in the name of being honest” her best lyric.
Liz Rose, the other songwriter of ‘All Too Well’, has explained that Taylor came into the session with circa 20 minutes worth of song lyrics before they dwindled it down into half that, before once again cutting it down into the final product. Ever since Taylor acknowledged the existence of this 10 minute version, swifties have been begging and clamouring for it. And although blondie made us wait a couple years, she finally delivered everything we wanted and more!
‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)’ is longer, more sprawling and angrier. While the original version is sad and tender until the rising emotion of the bridge, this version has an undercurrent of a broken promise from the second the added lyrics come in. It’s the song version of a Tumblr callout-post — Taylor lays it all out; all the wrong-doings, all her feelings. This version gets explicit about their age difference and how it affected both the relationship and the subsequent breakup.
There’s been some controversy surrounding if the added song lyrics were really written in 2011 or added more recently. In the end it doesn’t really matter, the song is great regardless. The new lyrics introduce some religious motifs — oaths, prayers and swearing a promise. It makes the outro, often seen as an affirmation on Taylor’s side — the relationship happened, she’s not crazy, it really did happen — even more bittersweet and powerful. — CarlieScion
“Taylor Swift — All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”
11. Silk Sonic — Leave The Door Open
When it was announced in February that Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak were teaming up to release a project as the new group Silk Sonic, everyone was ecstatic. Anderson has been doing his style of Funk Hip-Hop for a while, and it’s certainly no secret that Bruno Mars is a fan of delving into the past of Funk and R&B for musical inspirations. This seemed like a match made in heaven, and the release of ‘Leave The Door Open’ proved everyone right. The slice of 70s throwback Soul/R&B was such a welcome edition to 2021’s pop landscape. The lyrics beckoning a girl to spend a night together are balanced perfectly with the vocals of Paak playing a smooth, suave man trying to gently call her in, while Mars is putting his whole heart in his vocals to show her he is serious about his proposal. Paired with one of the most lush instrumentals heard this decade, produced by D’Mile and Bruno Mars, ‘Leave The Door Open’ is the smash hit that injected this year with the perfect amount of soul. — ImADudeDuh
10. Lil Nas X — MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)
The ascent of Lil Nas X after ‘Old Town Road’ is both surprising and completely obvious. The pressure of being a novelty one-hit wonder is huge and it was difficult to exactly see the long-term vision of Lil Nas X, the artist, even if Lil Nas X, the viral superstar was seemingly set in concrete. It’s not that songs like ‘Panini’ or ‘Holiday’ weren’t guaranteed to be successful (because they were) but even continued and unprecedented viral success has no guarantee of translating to becoming a contender for the laurels of musical history.
It’s with ‘MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)’ that that prospect begins to look like a possibility. Lil Nas, real name Montero (perhaps one of the most popstar-ready real names out there) has been one of the most prominent, if not the most prominent, queer and black trailblazers in the industry for the past two years in an industry so dearly lacking in either queer or black artists in the spotlight. Not every LGBTQ+ artist in the industry has chosen to make it so visibly part of their identity like Lil Nas but even up till this year it wasn’t entirely sure to what extent his experiences as a gay black man would be a part of his artistry. ‘MONTERO’ and its pretty unadulterated queerness and sexuality on display (“Shoot a child in your mouth while I’m riding”) made for a pretty great viral spectacle of course especially combined with the video, but more than anything, the confidence it’s delivered with means it was a stunning choice for a first single to show an artist with vision, something that he proved true with every follow-up to ‘MONTERO’ too. With honesty, I was never the biggest fan of ‘Old Town Road’ which felt too much like a one-trick pony of a song despite its catchiness, but ‘MONTERO’ improves on everything people liked about that song. A level of camp that exists exactly halfway between Gen Z meme and early 10s pop spectacle, and even nods to those country origins, with the song littered with rootsy guitar patterns and banjo. Montero, meet world. World, meet Montero. — Rai
9. MUNA — Silk Chiffon (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
MUNA’s last album Saves The World was the sound of queer spiralling in action. I can say this safely, having very much queerly spiralled to its release when I was going through the throes of a breakup. What exactly does queer spiralling sound like in MUNA’s eyes? Apparently, the exact intersection of 80s arena pop and 90s alt-rock. It’s a good mode to operate in, both being genres many of the band’s contemporaries have made their career from, although MUNA’s genre-agnostic combination of the two stands out — equally at home by yourself in the bedroom or in the stadium. The reasoning behind those genres (plus sprinklings of 00s radio adult contemporary) makes sense, as the band steal the most anthemic elements of those decades for their own purposes, leading to a variety of songs alternately synth- or guitar-dominated that feel cohesive more so by lead singer Katie Gavin’s heart-laid-bare lyrics rather than any sound in particular.
This is all to say that for a band that have perfected the art of documenting our inner torments, how have we landed at a point where we’re listening to them perhaps for one of the first times in their career make a song about unadulterated queer joy for once — and, perhaps even more unbelievably, with someone clearly known for the overflowing positivity in their songs, Phoebe Bridgers. Sure, the band tapped into something like positive energy on one of their earlier anthems, “I Know A Place”, but it functioned more like defiant protest song rather than the sunny paean to queer love that is “Silk Chiffon”. The rest of the formula? It stays to what made Saves The World so great in the first place. The joy is sufficient change up for it to sound revolutionary. — Rai
8. Lil Nas X — INDUSTRY BABY (feat. Jack Harlow)
‘INDUSTRY BABY’ is simultaneously one of Lil Nas’ most straight forward singles from the MONTERO rollout and maybe one of the standout ones for directly tackling his rise to fame. It’s a topic that comes about in discussion of any of his other songs and his coming out, but Lil Nas hasn’t really even had time in his career to reflect on it himself considering how quickly everything has happened for him. Yes, there was a pretty major break between his releases during 2020 although that is something he addresses in the song itself. It feels fitting that Kanye helped produced this track, a pretty major co-sign in of itself, but there really isn’t anyone more informed on the complexities of fame as Kanye in the industry really. It’s clear however that Lil Nas is clueing us in to the fact that he understands how this whole business works, ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ equal parts braggadocio and simply just entirely down-to-earth ode to conquering an industry set out against him.
The song’s triumphant brass propels the track, and brings to mind some of Lil Nas’ earlier singles like ‘Holiday’ or ‘Panini’ in terms of energy and general texture (rather than the outright camp flamboyancy of the likes of ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’), but with a well-needed level of additional polish that he realised is required from a star of his calibre. The Jack Harlow feature is particularly great too, a good foil to Lil Nas’ energy, and of course putting him in the middle of a video as aggressively gay as ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ works wonders too. Punchy bass and hi-hats punctuate the marching band feel — something taken from Beyoncé’s language — at the point where Beyoncé was moving into the most fully developed part of her own career. It’s interesting because this being his most straight forward return to a hip-hop-centric rap sound, he does take the opportunity to compare himself to Bieber — he sees himself as a pop star although we’ve come along a long way in what a pop star really is, with the likes of Lil Nas redefining it as we go. — Rai
7. Doja Cat — Kiss Me More (feat. SZA)
In a decade perhaps defined so far by our increasingly shorter attention spans, Doja Cat has done a pretty good job of staying relevant. It seems almost unreasonable the number of times she has gone viral, or a song of hers has become a TikTok trend. ‘Say So’ obviously comes to mind as the breakout song of Doja’s career and perhaps one of the most successful songs propelled by TikTok to date, its sunny funk stylings destined for H&M speaker systems across the globe from the moment it hit (but really elevated beyond just that by the fact that Doja’s charisma remains uncontainable in whatever musical setting you hit her with).
It feels almost like a cop-out that ‘Kiss Me More’ is essentially the exact same thing, but again. And yet, it works the second time round just as well as the first if not better. The production is more intimate and laid-back than its predecessor, the new guitar riffs the most refined we’ve heard the soft disco formula played so far.The melodies are played with restraint, Doja’s raps are decidedly not (catch the deliriously fun adlib Doja does during “I feel like fucking something”), and SZA’s guest appearance is perfect as the two have great energy together (the same energy Doja also channelled with Saweetie on ‘Best Friend’ this year too). The song is another little moment in general for SZA too, who has increasingly made her way onto a variety of features, and its perhaps for the best that this is now her most notable pop feature and not ‘What Lovers Do’. The nods to Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Physical’ work well too, giving the song extra ways to lodge itself into your brain permanently without being too obvious about it (after all, the song never actually approaches 80s synth pop territory). I would have said that it’s a shame this song really never had a TikTok moment like ‘Say So’ did out of the other comparisons with that song, but even then, I just remembered the existence of ‘Kiss Me More’’s entertainingly unhinged limp wrist trend that was going around. — Rai
6. SZA — Good Days
Despite SZA’s modest presence this year (although, yes, she’s still managed to be inescapable), it’s telling that her solo December 2020 release in ‘Good Days’ has managed to keep people’s attention even after a full year of stacked music releases. The song which was first teased at the end of the music video for last year’s ‘Hit Different’ quickly overshadowed that song’s fanfare — and it’s not hard to see why. It’s not an obvious single pick compared to the Neptunes-assisted contemporary R&B sheen of ‘Hit Different’, but ‘Good Days’ and its echoes of Ctrl’s dreamiest cuts like ‘Broken Clocks’ and ‘The Weekend’ solidified it as a bonafide classic in her discography.
It is in many ways the exemplary SZA song, whose brand of R&B has always stood out when it leans on atmospherics and translucency. Shimmering guitars doing their best impression of wind chimes, with stadium-sized record and echo, gives us one of the most hypnotic instrumentals of the year, but vitally it’s the space provided between the pulses of the song’s minimal beat that allows SZA and her distinctive stream-of-consciousness melodies a chance to flow without interruption. There are echoes of Frank Ocean’s Blonde here for sure (who SZA apparently asked to feature on a remix of this track — it’s still not too late to manifest this for 2022), but certainly parts of this track almost resemble spoken word set to music, or psychedelia, or folk, rather than the R&B of her contemporaries and the song as a whole makes a compelling case for why, despite how often she really has been imitated by other artists, no-one really has beat SZA at what SZA does. The lyrics themselves? A rumination on a breakup, but peppered with a wistful optimism that makes it feel ever so slightly more mature than some of her more acerbic moments on Ctrl — now on the other side of the therapist’s office, in a sense. Some of the year’s biggest musical moments have dealt in the extremes of love (with musical dramatics to match, from ten minute versions to pop punk revivals), so there is a lot to be said for SZA’s inward looking contemplations (and slightly wonderful Sufjan-esque biblical references) and the mantra of its chorus, “Still wanna try, still believe in good days always”. By the time Jacob Collier’s acapella touches come around in the outro to wind down, you might catch yourself and realise just how transcendent four and a half minutes can sound even without the theatrics. — Rai
5. Olivia Rodrigo — deja vu
How do you follow up the biggest song of the year? Well, with a song just as big (almost). The pretty impressive Billboard #3 peak of ‘deja vu’ was Olivia Rodrigo’s victory lap around the viral circuit of early 2021 (to be followed by further laps). It’s impressive how fruitful the creative collaboration between Olivia Rodrigo and Dan Nigro ended up being throughout 2021, a producer whose work with the likes of Caroline Polachek and Conan Gray has subtly pushed on the limits of mainstream pop, or at least theoretically if either Caroline or Conan managed to break through into the mainstream at all. Of course, the theoretical is now very much realised now, and maybe it’s too subtle in ‘deja vu’. But as Olivia has attested, when the song launches into its chorus with wailing distorted noise, it doesn’t really seem like that attractive a moment in any standard pop song at all, let alone one from someone who was supported to be a one-hit wonder with a serviceable Lorde impression as her detractors might say. It’s something straight out of the Radiohead playbook, even if that is a reference that feels useless in the context of a Olivia Rodrigo song — if only because it does Rodrigo no favours to her own merits.
There’s something slightly humorous in its references to Glee and listening to Billy Joel, mostly in that it does make sense entirely coming from an 18-year-old. For all the trendiness and indie cred that Olivia has managed to win over in critical circles, there is a naïve Gen Z glean to lyrics like these that gives her the primary appeal to her age group and is a reminder that this is just the beginning of her career. There’s a lot to look forward to in the future, that’s clear enough. — Rai
4. Japanese Breakfast — Be Sweet
It has begun to feel like a rite of passage that genre or indie artists have their turn at writing a capital-P Pop song, see Mitski’s ‘Nobody’ and Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Video Game’ (optional: 80s and/or disco references, mandatory: the grumbling of indie purists from the distance). This turn of populism is often the way that several of these artists (see Kacey Musgraves’ pop fandom after ‘High Horse’) break into the mainstream, so it’s tempting to also say that it’s simply inferior to their past work or has nothing to offer. The counterpoint is that, actually, there is no better showcase of talent than an indie artist saying “I can make a great pop song too”. After all, too many indie communities act like the presence of a singable mass-appealing chorus or even the hint of something being viable as TikTok audio means being a sell-out rather than the ability to translate virtuosity and musical complexity into something universal as in the lineage of masterminds like ABBA and Max Martin.
If we go back to Mitski, someone who has continually been grouped with Michelle Zauner as a contemporary, ‘Nobody’ was as much a deconstruction of a pop song as a pop song itself — for its incredibly catchy chorus, the song structure zigged and zagged in unpredictable ways that made it so distinctly Mitski. ‘Be Sweet’ therefore couldn’t really be any more different, the divergent nature of the two artists becoming increasingly more obvious from their gauzy indie roots as their vision (and budget) increases. The song plays its 80s references straight and has a level of pop appeal primed for buzzing live energy that many pop musicians would die to have once in a career. The lens of indie artists doing a pop song does often give a certain something that pop musicians would do good to learn from: mixing that keeps a band feel to the benefit of the song’s brilliant elastic bassline, the fun in experimenting with its call-and-response second verse, Zauner’s accomplished but raw vocals which make the “Be sweet to me, baby/I wanna believe in you” refrain so fizzy and emotionally believable (and probably one of the most fun singalongs of the year, see further down the list to MUNA and Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Silk Chiffon’ for another in the same vein). Look to Japanese Breakfast’s Jimmy Fallon performance of ‘Be Sweet’, with the frothy fun of neon sets and alien bartenders, and you can definitely see Zauner as something beyond just band frontwoman or popstar, but someone with the appeal of both and her music existing in a space greater too. — Rai
3. Charli XCX — Good Ones
How do you follow albums like Charli and how i’m feeling now that have helped redefine an entire new sound of pop? You don’t. That has essentially Charli’s mission statement in the wake of those projects, now working on her final album with Atlantic Records and essentially reducing the number of fucks she gives from 1 to 0. The campaign for ‘Good Ones’ was interesting, with levels of irony that folded in on themselves (a newfound dedication to the TikTok machine, tweeting out “rip hyperpop?” straight out). It does, however, work and the discussions around how much of this is fulfilling contractual obligations with her label and how much of it really is just Charli having some fun with straight forward pop songs feels like a moot thing to talk about at all when the results sound this good. It’s no-frills, but Charli has done no-frills well time and time again from ‘1999’ most recently to really her entire early career (the trajectory from ‘Boom Clap’ to ‘Good Ones’ seems a lot more believable if you pretend everything in between didn’t happen). It also somewhat sounds like Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’ updated for a club and/or TikTok challenge, but I see that as a plus more than anything. Who needs frills when you have hooks, choreography and a 2 minute track run time? It feels wrong to even talk about this song more than this, pop really is that simple sometimes and Charli knows it. — Rai
2. Olivia Rodrigo — good 4 u
How do you follow up the follow-up to the biggest song of the year? Well, first of all, with ‘good 4 u’ and secondly with an entire album the week afterwards. It’s difficult to really talk about Olivia Rodrigo in any normal capacity anymore just because of how her much her meteoric rise already has been talked and talked about. But as we have all probably realised by now, what ‘good 4 u’ gave us was a sense of something beyond just one-off singles and the promise of something cohesive from Olivia Rodrigo’s idea of pop stardom. “The driver’s license girl” is probably a reputation any other one-off musician could have had for an entire career. I think she was primed to get hate from the entire premise — Disney girl with viral success goes into guitar music. The death of rock? Greatly exaggerated. For all the cynicism, the amazing thing is that Rodrigo has really owned it incredibly well, and the likes of NPR concerts from inside a DMV or performances inside Asian grocery stores feel genuine and intimate counter to the narrative that no girl in pop could really escape the narrative of vehicle to pop hits. ‘good 4 u’ is every bit a spotless paean to 00s pop-punk as the inspirations that you hear in it (it wears its Paramore influences on its sleeve, but additional optimistic reassessment of 00s Paramore was always a good thing), but strip it down (like in her NPR Tiny Desk) and you hear the impeccable singer-songwriter sensibilities she already has at this point in her career that really bridge the small gap between Paramore and Taylor Swift and manage to match both of them pretty successfully. — Rai
1. Billie Eilish — Happier than Ever
There’s a particularly fun conversation between Billie Eilish and Stormzy for i-D from last year where Billie explains the title of her sophomore album. ‘Happier Than Ever just felt like such a perfect encapsulation of the last few years of my life. It has so many meanings, it’s a bit sarcastic but it’s also the truth, and it doesn’t mean happier than you’re ever going to be, or happier than anyone else, it just means happier than before. It means doing better. And I think that’s my life the last few years. I’m growing up, changing, getting better as a person, getting better mentally and creatively. It seemed perfect.”
It’s interesting to listen to the title track with this in mind. She’s said that the song was essentially one of the oldest songs on the record, its original title changed to ‘Happier Than Ever’ then realising that the title was enough to build the concept of an album around. You certainly notice the fact that ‘Happier Than Ever’ the song isn’t really about everything she talked about on a higher level in that conversation with Stormzy — it’s a breakup song at the heart of it. Her relationship with an ex is certainly not the only defining feature of the past few years of her life (especially not for someone like Billie whose every detail of her day-to-day and career has been analysed) and yet this song, that shares its name with this album, is a breakup song from a young woman with straight forwardly confessional lyrics and nothing even resembling a treatise on everything that has happened in the past few years of Billie’s life. This is however just an overly traditional take on what a title track is for an album — here, Billie is simply offering an Exhibit A example for the concept of the album, before allowing the other tracks to offer variations on the theme and deal with the complexities that it presents, both lyrically and musically.
‘Happier than Ever’ is about as bombastic as you can get for an Exhibit A (albeit one sneakily tucked in as the album’s penultimate track) and its popularity reflects that. For the few people who try to predict the positions of songs on this list year on year, I feel like this may be one that people might not have realised would end up at #1 (myself included) even though it’s ended up beating out the second place spot by almost an extra 50% of votes. Part of the bombast is something it shares with the second place spot (Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u”) which is rampant guitar revivalism. The song does unassumingly start with some strummed ukulele, a sort of throwback to the sounds of ‘bellyache’ with new soul sonic references that are sprinkled vicariously across her sophomore, but it’s fairly obvious that the song has become such a runaway winner for its fire-and-brimstone climax that is a total departure from anything Billie has done before or indeed on the rest of the album. The sound is one thing, joining the likes of Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘I Know The End’ for apocalyptic centrepieces that push their live instrumentation premises to their very limits, but Billie’s voice itself — something that never strays too far from its usual default of liquid and ASMR-like — transforms into something raw and freshly forged, screams and all. It’s a new Billie from here on out. — Rai
Intro & Honorable Mentions | 101–76 | 75–51 | 50–26 | 25–1 | Full List
