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Top 20 Songs of June 2014

The month that popped. As much as I love pop music, I seemed to listen to an inordinate amount of it June. This is only because some awesome pop tunes were released or came to my ears in June. This is a good thing. Here’s the list of my Top 20 Songs of June.

20. jj – All White Everything

All white indeed. Glad to hear them back with new material. They have a way with breezy electronica unlike any other act.

 

19. Kylie Minogue – Crystallize

Best Kylie song in years.

 

18. Kyla La Grange – Fly/Get It

I’ve heard a lot from Kyla La Grange this year, being exposed to her for the first time with the immaculate smashes “Cut Your Teeth” and “The Knife”. She just dropped a new album, and there a bunch of super-catchy electro-pop ditties on it. Her lilting falsetto works well with the dark-meets-light synth tracks. This is evidenced best on “Get It” and “Fly”.

Get It:

Fly:

 

17. Omar Souleyman – Wenu Wenu

Love this track, and was very fortunate to have seen Omar perform at NXNE’s Vice Island (with Le1f and Future Islands). Not the most demonstrative character, but this song is gitchy galore.

 

16. Lil Jon – Turn Down For What

Waaaay late to this party. Still, a massive pop/hop/club banger that I couldn’t turn down, no matter what.

 

BONUS VIDEO: Hilarious video of Star Trek set to “Turn Down For What”.

 

15. Charli XCX – Boom Clap

One of the best poppers around. Charli’s new single is a winner.

 

14. Le1f – Boom

“Boom” is hella catchy, and Le1f is really good live. An engaging showman.

 

13. Royksopp & Robyn – Monument

I think I may have been too quick to anoint “Every Little Thing” the far-and-away best track Royksopp and Robyn’s recently released EP. “Monument” definitely gives ELT a run for its money. Both are dynamic, slithering, pulsating electro-pop gems. “Monument” is even more of a slow-burn, an ode to shooting for the moon, a thriller of a pillar, a huge hoarder of brick and mortar. Royksopp and Robyn are a lethal combination.

 

12. Sia – Chandelier

I do believe Sia is the best pop songwriter of the past several years. Her touch has lifted so many huge pop singles to glory. She’s kept a massive hook for herself here, and “Chandelier” borders on the outermost limits of the atmosphere.

 

11. Tove Styrke – Even If I’m Loud If Doesn’t Mean I’m Talking To You

What’s with amazing pop stars from Sweden named Tove?! Tove Styrke has been away for a few minutes, but she’s burst back onto the scene with a hulking and dizzying dancer of a tune.

 

10. Foster The People – Best Friend

At present, I don’t love Foster The People’s second record. I quite like two songs from it, “Coming of Age” and the follow-up single, “Best Friend”. This is the song that most harkens back to the wonderfully catchy gaiety of their indomitable debut album.

 

9. The Griswolds – Red Tuxedo

Short, pretty, and unusually sweet, “Red Tuxedo” is a warm, sunny ballad that possesses just the right amount of nostalgia-laced ache.

 

8. Wye Oak – Glory

Best song I’ve ever heard from Wye Oak. “Glory” is wickedly catchy.

 

7. The Alternate Routes – Nothing More

What a fantastic melody. Thanks to TC for the heads up on this band!

 

6. La Roux – Let Me Down Gently (Sailors Remix)

One of my favourite remixes of the year. Sailors have done an exceptional job retaining the hooks and upping the playfulness quotient, contrasting the brooding original with this reflective yet skip-to-my-louing banger.

 

5. Ed Sheeran – Sing

It took me a little while to come around on “Sing”. A couple months actually. I was so in love with several of the songs from Ed’s debut record + (“The A Team”, “Drunk”, “Small Bump”, and “Lego House”) that I think I held whatever he released next to an unreasonable standard. And it’s not that “Sing” is necessarily an inferior song to those other tracks. It’s just different, a cocksure pop song designed for radio domination. Perhaps I just like it best when Ed Sheeran lets his voice, guitar, and preternatural way with melody shine through. “Sing” is not that simple, with its knife-sharp sheen and flawless Pharrell production, that it took a while for me to fall for its charms. Fallen I have. It’s just a song mate, and it’s a bloody catchy one at that.

 

4. 5 Seconds Of Summer – She Looks So Perfect

Completely chock-full of hooks in every fathomable nook and cranny. This is a perfect pop/alt song.

 

3. Tove Lo – Over

On repeat throughout June, “Over” is a marvellous pop song. Tove Lo’s impassioned vocal dips and soars and prods and pleas in this gem of a tune. Sweden strikes again. (When isn’t that apt? Never.)

 

2. La Roux – Tropical Chancer

So many layers of pop genius here. This marks the third song that La Roux has released from her brand-new album, and it’s the third monumental track. “Tropical Chancer” sounds like a juggernaut now, and I believe it will hold up as one just like so many of the songs on La Roux’s debut have five years later. What an ear for absolutely perfect melodies and layers Elly Jackson has. The track earns bonus points with me for the subtle but amazing flute (flutish?) flourishes at 2:48. I’ve not an iota of doubt that “Tropical Chancer”, both the song and the album, will be among the best of the year in both categories.

 

1. Jessie Ware – Tough Love

For the longest time, I had La Roux’s “Tropical Chancer” as my favourite song of June. I listened to it a tonne, and found so many great layers to bask in. It’s a commanding, multi-layered pop masterstroke.

But I felt something different for “Tough Love”. I felt, after only a couple listens, like I was experiencing one of the songs of the year — a new school soul-electro-pop smash supported by shimmering, pristine, jaw-droppingly gorgeous production. I felt like I could see a part of Jessie Ware’s essence floating in, around, below, and above “Tough Love”. I felt like I could hear her spirit — decimated but unfathomably resilient in the hea(r)t of a tumultuous fire — crawling all over this sultry, sizzling, sexy track. Maybe more importantly than that, I think the power of this song tattooed something on me: a reflection, a foil, a consideration, a commiseration.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I’m not sure when or if I’ll be able to. That’s called “Tough Love”.

 

Top 100 Songs of 2009 (50-26)

50. White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

The best song that Cold War Kids didn’t release this year. The drumming is cool and the vocal is tight and urgent.

49. Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker – Laces Out

They can do buck wild with the best of them. This song attests to their wicked strong pop instincts.

48. In-Flight Safety – Model Homes

They are not re-inventing the wheel with this one, but they are patently honest and believable. I haven’t rooted for Maritimers this much since the Trailer Park Boys.

47. The Maine – Ho Ho Hopefully

The best Christmas song of the year, by far. I heard Santa cried when he first heard this song, then Mrs. Claus told him to stop being so Emo, then he cut his wrists, then she patched it up with love and candied tears, then they made sweet, cherubic love.

46. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks

A band in their prime, brimming with melodies and musical ideas to spare. I feel really warm when I listen to this song, warm like my body is layered in longjohns wrapped in longstockings covered in leopard-skin leotards. This song is luscious to its very core. Bonus points for probably my favourite video of the year, an amazing visual trip.

45. Backstreet Boys – Bigger

Far and away the best song on their mostly forgettable new record, this tune proves they can fit Adult Contemporary bliss in their back pocket. Max Martin was, is and will forever remain an indomitable Swedish treasure.

44. Muse – Undisclosed Desires

They cannot top the catchiness of “Starlight”, but they come close here. This is “Starlight’s” dirtier, younger, troublemaking cousin. For such a gitchy tune, designed to make people raise hands and give in, that is some pretty grimey bass-slapping action going on in the chorus. An underrated and sneaky part of the song comes in at 3:06, with some low level background crooning from Mr. Bellamy. Slyer than Stallone and slicker than Rick.

43. Hot Chip – Take It In

This song hasn’t been out long, but the chorus soars so high it renders its late year release moot. The chorus is baby-powdered with pure lilac and doused with the serenity of sage. A chorus like this comes around once a career for most bands. Simply breathtaking.

42. Silversun Pickups – There’s No Secrets This Year

There are no secrets and there are no explanations worthy of a song that froths with so much vigour, intensity, and excitement. The bravado of this album-opener is unparalleled. (“I’ll tell you a secret, let’s make this perfectly clear, we’ve got roofies in here” Those who know will know.) Bonus points for the minute lead into “The Royal We”.

41. Placebo – Julien

Probably Placebo’s most club-ready song, and probably their buck-nastiest track to date. A foot-tapper of epic proportions; I’m confounded as to why this song has yet to be released as a single. “Julien, you’re being taken, for a ride…” So are we, and rarely has it been so much fun.

40. Metric – Waves

I can’t believe this song didn’t make Fantasies. The absolute opposite of a B-side. This song is sweet, light and unfathomably catchy.

39. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Scattered Pearls

It was a fait a compli, this song is as pure as a white lilly. The most innocent song of the year and undoubtedly one of the best.

38. Tiesto f. Tegan & Sara – Feel It In My Bones

The best electronic song of the year. Clearly the best song on his bloated and not so good Kaleidoscope. Should have been the first single, but will settle for being the biggest hit. A really concise instrumental aided by an awesome vocal turn by Tegan & Sara. The tune gets particularly massive at 3:00. What dance/trance/pop should aspire to be, though it rarely hits like this.

37. Animal Collective – Brother Sport

“Open up your throat,” open up your mind, open up your heart, and there will be no stopping the force of nature that is “Brother Sport”. When I listen to this song, I hear celebration, all-encompassing and glorious from the first second to the last.

36. The Stills – I’m With You

Just your classic pop-rock perfection, no more and no less.

35. M83 – Kim & Jessie

This song came out in early 2008, and I liked it then and for the rest of that year. It became the most beautiful explosion of hope, promise, and relaxation this year. Anthony Gonzalez layers so much in this tune, it seems impossible to get sick of. The nearly incomprehensible lyric adds to the charm of this marvelous song. If you were an animal being built from scratch, this song is the sound of your exoskeleton fusing with your muscular and nervous systems to make you feel…alive.

34. The Killers – A White Demon Love Song

An intriguing departure for The Killers. This doesn’t necessarily sound like them, but as usual, it is one super bad-ass tune. The chorus, in particular, slithers along at its own deliberate pace, led by that lazy bassline. The chorus is cacophonic, like a bear choking on malaise and tonic. I don’t think they’ve ever double-tracked a vocal with such disparate octaves. It’s the pace, it’s the chorus, it’s the trumpet add-on in the last section, it’s the question, “White demon, open your heart skull, white demon, who let your friend…go?”.

33. The Boxer Rebellion – Evacuate

The best free iTunes “song of the week” of the year–by miles and miles and days and days. This song is so energetic it couldn’t be further from rigormortis than prime-era Clinton Portis.

32. Noah & The Whale – Blue Skies

A song about heartbreak and reflection that can’t help but feel cathartic and transcendent. Such a pretty, precious song. Having shown a knack for writing the sweetest new-folk/indie/pop around, Noah & The Whale have settled comfortably and beautifully into their own collective skin.

31. Maximo Park – Let’s Get Clinical

I’m still not even sure this is the best song on the album, because top to bottom, Quicken The Heart is consistently strong. This tune has been my favourite for the longest period of time, if only because of her, if only because “I’d like to map your body out, inch by inch, north to south…”.

30. JJ – Things Will Never Be The Same Again

The best jungle-prancing song of the year. Somehow Max & Carol are having a rumpus to this song, somehow two people are falling in love to this song, and somehow, this is the sound of summer in all its sun-kissed glory.

29. Placebo – Kings of Medicine

The epic album-closer. My favourite tune on the record. The song with the grandest aspirations, musically and lyrically. It has the bright sheen that Placebo have recently discovered, but it also carries a heft of Meds’ doldrums-focused attitude. I preferred Placebo when they were revelling in dirt and passed out on the floor, but knowing they can sound this good when they step out of the darkness gives me hope. It’s the gorgeous piano melody and the soaring brass that goes regal at 3:40. It’s funny that the word “kings” is in the title, as pretty clearly, this song is the sound of a coronation. “Don’t leave me here, to pass through time, without a map or road sign,” Brian croons. With Placebo doubling as the newly crowned “Kings of Medicine”, I don’t fear for the direction of the dominion. Placebites rejoice, the reign continues.

28. Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You

This tune is equipollent to her balladry, a swirling concoction of sounds and images. There is not much more to say than Neko Case is the best female singer-songwriter on the planet right now and that I love everything she stands for and makes me feel. I can penetrate her songs with a depth and appreciation that is pretty much an impossibility with anyone else. Strength, power, and beauty incarnate.

27. Julian Casablancas – Out of the Blue

I wonder what seeing his fellow Strokes’ brethren release sturdy record after sturdy record did to him? It sure as hell didn’t slow him down, that much is apparent. The Stroke with the most obvious pop instincts, Casablancas lets loose on this song, the album-opener from his generally strong Phrazes For The Young. There are hooks left, right, and centre. There are synths galore. There are inspired vocals. There is pop magic at its core. “How could you be, so perfect for me?”. You are “Out of the Blue”, you are. Bonus points for making me think of her when I hear it.

26. Alexisonfire – The Northern

They specialize in anthems and have had oodles in their young and so far spectacular career, and this track will surely come to be revered alongside the best of them. This song is their pop masterstroke to date. Everybody is hitting on all cylinders here. It’s Dallas’ double-tracked vocals to begin the song and George breaking down not only the door at the 2:40 mark, but pretty much demolishing an entire skyscraper with hundreds of sticks of dynamite. “I want to go…to heaven…roll Jordan, rolllllllllll Jordan.” Well, at least you’ve got St. Pete’s attention now. That beginning riff is OMG-crunchy. Buck Nasty is the name of what’s going on here.