30. Adrianne Lenker “Sadness as a Gift”
Adrianne Lenker’s vocals, which manage to be delicate without being fragile, give the lyrics of this song even more meaning – and they are stunning to begin with. For me the most powerful part of the song is the twist she puts on the refrain, each time singing, “Leaning on the windowsill / you could write me someday…” but finishing the line with a different word on each repetition. First she sings, “…and I think you will,” then “…and I bet you will,” and finally, “…and I hope you will.” This quiet shift in phrase brings a whole new perspective to this song, evoking a cycle like the turning of the earth, seasons blurring into one another, letting go of what we once knew. – Ali Meizels
29. Cigarettes After Sex “Tejano Blue”
“We wanted to fuck with real love,” is the first lyric sung by Greg Gonzalez at the start of Cigarettes After Sex’s lead single from their third full-length album, X’s. Never one to miss an opportunity to express his bottomless (no pun intended) supply of horniness, Gonzalez, over a gently plucked guitar and soft drumming, sings tenderly in a voice just above a whisper about, evidently, making love while listening to sad Tejano music. With song lyrics like, “and when you drag me on the floor, and the blue Tejano’s on,” one could easily confuse the musical style popularized by Selena in the nineties with a brand of women’s jeans of the same name. Gonzalez cleared up any possible misinterpretation when he was quoted in a press release for the song, saying, “I grew up in El Paso, and Tejano music is huge there.” – Andy Mascola
28. Hooky “Mirror”
27. Charli XCX “Talk Talk”
26. Momus “Codependency”
“Codependency”, the leadoff song from Yikes!, the first of two studio albums released by Momus in 2024, finds the Scottish musician slipping into the skin of a paranoid lover who chooses to dismiss their psychotherapist’s diagnosis of codependence for their overarching need to feel necessary. “Codependency” is a story song about a person being woken in the wee hours by a “puffy and bland phantasmagorical hand.” It is a synth pop parable that reminds one that low self-esteem and a strong desire to be wanted can lead to an unhealthy attachment to an often controlling and manipulative person. – Andy Mascola
25. Fish Hunt “Shine”
24. Angie McMahon “Just Like North”
Angie McMahon was my most-listened-to artist of the year, and “Just Like North” has all of the elements that I most love about her music: an encouraging message, a repeated mantra-like phrase, and of course her reverberant and powerful vocals. On this track she comments on the ways in which negative concepts like pain and failure are as important and inherent to life as any positive ones. She sings, “pain will be on every map, just like north is / Pain will be in every year, just like August / And if you get everything right, then there’s nothing else left.” – Ali Meizels
23. Adrianne Lenker “Vampire Empire”
22. Xiu Xiu “Veneficium”
Veneficium is a Latin word that refers to the act of poisoning or the practicing of witchcraft or harmful magic. This tracks, as one look at the lyrics for Xiu Xiu’s song of the same name and you’d swear you were reading an incantation. “Unto floating eyes, flash in deep release, calendulas loomed before thеy were consumed, all turns for thе worse, unreal but not untrue, seized by mass and shape, is it all it is?” singer Jamie Stewart intones in his trademark impassioned howling moan. With it’s catchy synth hook and comparatively straightforward percussion, “Veneficium” is a straight-up banger. It may be the most mainstream the experimental act has sounded in the 2020s thus far. – Andy Mascola
21. Chinese Man “Too Late”
