“Empire Ants” - Gorillaz (Parlophone, 2010)
One of Plastic Beach’s best turns was admitting to the perverse beauty in the polystyrene. Much like how In Rainbows was based off the gorgeous shimmer found in oily water, Gorillaz’s plastic wonderland was toxic and calming by equal turns. For every gritty slab of funk (“Stylo”) there was a pop smash as a healing balm (“Melancholy Hill”). But, for one song, they luxuriated in the grandeur. “Empire Ants” summed up Damon Albarn’s future pop in one fell swoop. The opening half radiates tranquility, with Broadway pianos twinkling over breathy guitar and Albarn’s cooing of “the polyphonic prayer is here,” is a stunningly concise explanation of how to fall in love with music.
And that’s before the beatswitch. It’s well known I’m a sucker for them, but the flip into a silky-smooth nightflight with Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano strutting like a nightclub diva from Andromeda makes me tear up every time I hear it. The first half is sunset on Plastic Beach, the second, as that delicious bass line and lush synth wall breathe out, is night at the edge of the world, bioluminescence mixing with discarded nightlights and tire fires. - NS
“Eula” - Baroness (Relapse, 2012)
It’s easy for any of the tunes on Baroness’ Yellow & Green to get lost. In sharp contrast with most double albums, Yellow & Green is stacked front to back, with nary a dull moment to be found. “March to the Sea,” “Cocainium,” “Green Theme”: all Baroness classics. Yet “Eula” stands alone at the middle of everything, closing out Yellow as it segues into Green, a monumental piece of rock music. An eerie electric guitar lick, joined by somber chords on an acoustic guitar, establishes an ominous atmosphere that becomes all the more haunting when the echoey vocals of John Dyer Baizley appear in the mix. “Settle down,” he commands, “This won’t last long.” The key refrain of the track – “It’s my own blood” – repeats with variations that precede it, all escalating in intensity. First we hear, “When my bones begin to break / And my head begins to shake / It’s my own blood.” You never quite know what Baizley’s talking about, but you know whatever it is, it’s serious, it’s life or death. Equal parts lamentation and doom color “Eula,” Baroness’ own “Stairway to Heaven.” - BE
“The Falling Veil” - Elder (Armageddon Shop, 2017)
I always wondered what Cormac McCarthy rewriting Conanwould sound like. For any other band, that might be a stretch on the brutish, nerdy pantheon. The mythology of hard rock and metal has been intertwined with fantasy and westerns from its genesis. And Elder, from the monolithic name down, have tapped into that lore brilliantly. It was fascinating to see them fully evolve from their days as a doom band into a hallucinatory and thrilling mix of heavy psych and progressive rock. Still heavier than any metal band on this plain, but with a wondrous dexterity that drove them to craft truly progressivemusic, segments colliding and mutating.
And “The Falling Veil” turned out to be their centerpiece, not just on Reflections of a Floating World, but in their discography. In fact, put another qualifier here, it’s hard to think of another rocks song that matched it for ambition, high-octane thrills and crushing elegance this decade. An 11-minute monster of a track, “The Falling Veil” placed a bar up into the stratosphere for rockers looking to find the delicate balance of brutal and beautiful. On paper you could cut it down into about six or seven segments, but that would detract from how effortlessly each one flows into the next. It’s not until the heart stopping conclusion that you realize just how far you’ve gone. From the desolate, trembling intro that sets the stage to a thrashing, hardcore break down to fluttering guitar duets, it’s as though Elder wanted to run through every trick they have up their sleeves in one song.
That long intro is nearly a taunt, stretching out the tension to a near unbearable tenor before bursting into a dueling guitar lead and Nick DiSalvo’s propulsive vocal performance, urging his bandmates on. By the time the scenery shifts again, we’re in the midst of a rushing squall of guitars of the “Voodoo Chile” school of thought. But “The Falling Veil”’s core comes from a melding of impossibly pretty and impossibly bruising. The sound cuts out, leaving only a mellotron and guitar, singing like a chorus of strings as a low bass hums below it, soon to usher in another thrashing section with the full band playing even louder than before. The electronic equivalent would be a drop, but this is more of an elevation. And despite their pummeling tendencies, that’s what Elder, and “The Falling Veil” do better than any other rock band. Through their bruising sound they take flight. - NS
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“Fineshrine” - Purity Ring (4AD, 2012)
There is a softness and an edge present simultaneously in Purity Ring’s composition, a sense of deep longing and the thumping push of dance. Megan James’ lyrics are of a willing self-destruction, a giving to another in the language of bodily rending: “Get a little closer, let fold / cut open my sternum, and pull / my little ribs around you / the rungs of me be under, under you.”
“Fineshrine” is a dreamy, bouncy anthem for the gauzed-out post-pop of Purity Ring and the mid-twentyteens. The combination of Megan James’ airy vocals and Corin Roddick’s dark electronic beats creates an atmosphere of longing and the post-party, the emptiness of walking home after the end of things, or the calm of a relationship that is built on mutual giving & taking.
Wherever there is the lilting of lyricism, it is built on the bones of a pulsing, electronic beat provided by Roddick, creating the signature sinister edge of the duo’s musical style. Purity Ring never lets listeners rest in the calm of James’ lyrics, nor lets them lose themselves in the thump of Roddick’s rhythm. Instead, there is a liminality to Fineshrine, keeping it just on the edge between calming and agitation, a soft chaos guided through by each participant. - DD
“Firework” - Katy Perry (Capital, 2010)
I only think I know what Katy Perry means when she asks if I feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind. Sometimes… it do be like that? What I do know, however, is that much like the Teenage Dream album as a whole, “Firework” is a masterclass in major studio, multiple-songwriters-on-deck pop. - BE
“Full Sail” - Monster Rally (Gold Robot, 2016)
Ted Feighan's tropicalia beatscapes under his Monster Rally moniker are repetitious in the best kind of way, transporting you to a world where every drink you're served comes in a hollowed-out coconut with a tiny umbrella floating inside of it. "Full Sail" is your first weekend on vacation and soundtracks the exact moment when you're truly starting to feel the fantasy. - ES
“IT G MA (josh pan Opus)” - Keith Ape (OWSLA, 2016)
When you label something “Opus Remix,” you can’t bring anything less than Super Saiyan to the table. And somehow, Opus feels like an understatement. josh pan’s wild, scope-shattering reimagining of South Korean trap wonder Keith Ape’s “IT G MA,” weaves together every ADD influence and internet rabbit hole the 2010s offered. Built on a foundation of wetransfer files swapped over thousands of miles, but polished like a full strength Def Jam was behind the operation, “IT G MA” shit talks and globetrots with manic glee.
Keith Ape’s emphatically dangerous verse is reworked into the hook, working as an anchoring point, as each segment mutation flows back to his adrenaline-filled “WOOO!” In the meantime, pan gives A$AP Ferg a darkly luxurious background to prance over, cuts Waka Flocka Flame’s headsmashing into a motivational koen. That’s while the decade’s most textured beat unfurls behind, swirling from hedonistic EDM to dreamy trap hi-hats slipping in and out of focus. Dumbfoundead takes “DMT by the DMZ” and the beat shifts again as Anderson .Paak rolls in with a devilish grin and disses so charismatic, you’ll buy him the first round as he steals your girl.
And it closes with pan speeding everything up to a fever pitch, taking samples from the goddamn Okami soundtrack and channels Steve Vai through the keyboards, making the synths burst with exhaustion and color. It is a quarter hour suite, a thought exercise on how many rules you can break made deliriously real. And if you can make one man shouting “BRICKSQUAAAD” an eruption of sheer euphoria, you haven’t just reset the rules, you’ve molded them to your will. - NS
“Get Out of the Car” - Aesop Rock (Rhymesayers, 2016)
Camu Tao’s death rippled through the world of rap in strange, sorrowful ways. His passing seemed to be the final straw that broke El-P’s underground, legendary label Def Jux and haunted El’s work for the rest of the decade. And the ever-introspective Aesop Rock withdrew. He made his most insular work in 2012, the knotty, thorny Skelethon, his darkest and most abstract, even for the “Jabberwocky superfly.” But that was the warmup for a short, brutish, perfect coda that unwound like every therapy session he ever had bursting out in two minutes. “Get Out the Car” was Aes’ reflections on running away from Mu’s death, unable to comprehend or work through the pain. “If I zoom on out I can finally admit/ It's all been a blur since Mu got sick/ None of the subsequent years stood a chance,” he raps. He unfurls his most direct and beautiful poetry in years, wrapping up all of The Impossible Kid’s remarkable vulnerability in one song. There have been few meditations on grief as powerful or accurate. - NS
“The Ghost Ship” - Farao (Western, 2018)
The bastard love child of Beyoncé, Gorillaz and Madonna is here. And it comes shimmering in on the sea-sick bass lurch of “The Ghost Ship.” The centerpiece of Farao’s woozy Pure-O ishypnotic. With stuttering hi-hats teetering like a drunk, the “ship” in the title refers to Farao’s own feelings of being tossed and turned through a string of unpredictable relationships, fading in and out of view. On the verses, her voice sings clear and high, her introspective thoughts matched by blazing synthesizers and an undeniable bass line. But once that earworm chorus hits, it’s a tsunami of outside voices; boys, girls, lovers, haters and cheaters all turned into ghosts floating through her head. “I need to get my shit together to be worthy of a man,” she sings, only to later have a petty segment of her brain smirk “I got my hands on your money/ Got my hands on your guy.” It’s a deeply troubled, confused song — except for its musical confidence. There, it’s smooth sailing. - NS
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“Go Do” - Jónsi (XL, 2010)
As time went on, Sigur Rós went from slowcore emotional titans to a band that had a bit more of a distinct radio-friendly bent to them (Hopelandic lyrics aside), but no one could have expected the full percussion-pop fantasia of Jónsi's solo debut. Opener "Go Do" feels like the kind of song Coldplay has been striving for on their last few albums but just can't obtain. The hidden secret? Flutes. A fuckton of flutes. - ES