It's just gone 11pm last night and I'm once again dwelling on my painfully poor organisation and time management skills. I try so hard, but these end of year posts just sprung themselves on me and I just... I wasn't prepared. Whilst I have an existential crisis, here is the next instalment of my favourite tracks of the year.
20. Fightstar - Sink With The Snakes
Featuring on the post-hardcore quartet's comeback album, which happens to be their first record in four years, 'Sink With The Snakes' is the standout track by miles, if not light years. I would have had absolutely no qualms with this being the first single to be taken from 'Behind The Devil's Back', hell, to be quite honest I wouldn't have minded if it had been the only song on the album. Despite having progressed in sound as with the rest of material on Fightstar's most recent album, 'Sink With The Snakes' does recapture the magic that we first head on the likes of 'Grand Unification' and 'Deathcar'. It's just a shame that the rest of the record didn't seem to live up to that.
19. Goldlink - Dance On Me
Considering such a majority of Goldlink's lyrics are pretty crude, it's almost surprising that I enjoy his music as much as I do. But with tracks like 'Dance On Me' in particular, I love how much of a dance/club feel it has even if that is almost explicitly described in the title. For me, there's something that I find much more interesting about hip hop if it's infused with something else. We can also add Goldlink to the list of artists I neglected to see live this year despite having the opportunity. *sad face*
18. Kloe - Feel
Kloe is my favourite pop princess to be. The 19 year old Glaswegian lass has released a trio of sultry pop tracks over the last year. Track two of three, 'Feel', is definitely my favourite. The intro alone is enough to make you feel as though you're sauntering around a high end nightclub fitted with expensive low lighting. Kloe's Soundcloud bio reads "I sing my secrets" and the more you listen to her lyrics, the more you can hear that Kloe is a very talented musician as well as a genuine teenager with a bright future ahead of her.
17. Aquilo - Good Girl
I did not like 'Good Girl' upon my first listen. "It's not Aquilo, it's not slow and whistful, and it's not almost a ballad. I don't like it." Then I realised that it's absolutely incredible even though it's not quite the same as what we're used to hearing from the duo. I'd like to hope that 'Good Girl' is the kind of material that I hope we can expect to hear on their debut album because it's just so pop and great and amazing. Gotta catch Aquilo live at some point in 2016 too.
16. Erik Hassle - Natural Born Lovers
Someone is going to need to take some time to explain to me why Erik Hassle isn't the biggest popstar ever right now. 'Natural Born Lovers' is such a monumentally massive pop song and it's just insane that music this great doesn't get picked up by radio and other big ol' media outlets like that in the UK. After hearing this and 'No Words' my expectations for Hassle's next album (which we can only assume will be out in 2016) are really high. I also haven't seen him live for about five or six years so a UK tour would be cool too.
15. The Knocks feat Fetty Wap and Powers - Classic
'Classic' was originally released in Summer 2014 and at that time I did not enjoy it at all, which was a shame because I really liked The Knocks' track 'Comfortable' which the duo had released a little earlier in the year. However, since Fetty Wap swooped in and took over our lives with his Remy Boys, he has also put his stamp on 'Classic' and turned it into what was quite possibly my song of the summer this year. Even listening to it as we edge the end of December, I'm not sure how, but it still screams summer at me.
14. Kiiara - Gold
I don't even know where 'Gold' came from. It's literally as though it fell from the sky one day and took control of the internet - like Flappy Bird but with a far larger amount of potential and paving a much brighter future ahead of it's creator, Kiiara. 'Gold' is nuts though. Riddled with backwards vocals and some heavy percussion, is this what we were waiting for? An American teenager to storm in and completely fuck shit up. Kiiara's probably got this whole career thing down now, hasn't she?
13. Maths Time Joy feat Flores - After Hours
I've been posting various Maths Time Joy tracks on WIIHAMB for a while now and despite still being completely incapable of saying "Maths Time Joy" out loud (I don't know why), I fell head over heels in love with 'After Hours' over the summer. 'After Hours' is an example of whatever genre you want to refer to this as done so well. And the fact that Flores doesn't sing on the choruses, which I guess is what you'd tend to expect from a featured artist, is a nice change. [EDIT: This entire post was stalled when I learnt that Maths Time Joy's real name Timothy James is an anagram of Maths Time Joy. Fucking mindblown.]
12. Leks Rivers - Soho Knights
There's something so cool about the music that Leks Rivers makes. It doesn't sound an iota like anything anyone else is doing, and not only that, his vocals are so interesting to just listen to. I don't even know if there's a genre that I could attempt to tie 'Soho Knights' to because it's just so "out there" - maybe some kind of alternative hip hop? I don't even know. The most frustrating thing about how good this song is, though, is that none of Rivers' music is available to buy on actual stores. Help me to help you, Leks, please.
11. XYconstant feat Tom Aspaul - Do It Well
This is the song on this list to walk down the street and pretend that you're in a music video to. I know very little about XYconstant but featured vocalist Tom Aspaul almost featured on this list twice and definitely would have done if I hadn't had to cut it down to just 30 songs. 'Do It Well' is such a great pop/electronic song and I would have loved to see it crossover into "the mainstream". I also would have loved it to have had an official video, but you can't have it all.
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