get a load of these dipshits lmao

When you’ve got a “Sledgehammer,” is every chart-peak one you can nail? What’s great is how slow the song is; it takes its time and lets you enjoy the beats and bumps along the way. A slow song in the Top 40 that isn’t a ballad—but instead, say, a horn-stomping vamp—is a thing of beauty.

Is this one of the great pop arcs in history, Gabriel going from theatrical prog to spare electro to warm accessibility? Sure, we love the late-career masterpieces. But sometimes people do their best work and exit the stage as a bundle of glowing stars. Not that Gabriel was (or is) finished by any stretch—for starters, who will join me in heaping love on “Big Time,” which I find superior to “Sledgehammer” for its intrigue and drama, its terrific low synth build-up to the chorus, even more swagger and bravado?

And my heaven will be a big heaven—[dramatic drop]—and I will walk through the front door!

(Maybe I’m reminded of our new Supreme Court here? At any rate, there’s no better way to launch your psychedelic journey through the multicolor, multimedia innards of one’s ego-driven psyche than with a simple declaration: “Hi there!”)

Another great video, too—though here as in the case of “Sledgehammer,” watching it seems to shape the song. (For me, at least.) Taking in “Sledgehammer” on YouTube is an active, nervy experience and I wonder if it makes the song feel faster. (Another thing I liked about the video is the rare glimpse of credits, putting names to the geniuses who made this milestone work of art.)

In the end, Gabriel gave us greatness in the 1980s and for that we should be thankful. I am. Even more so, I’m happy to be part of this forum with some incredible music fans.

Have a wonderful whatever you celebrate, even if you celebrate nothing at all!

Ace

does eve6 have 2.6 million monthly pandora listeners ?

Another song that is inexorably tied to its video, Sledgehammer is brilliant all the way around. I’d be willing to bet that when most people hear this song on their headphones or the radio, they are picturing the video. It has the best combination of size, power, and masterful production. It hits you with hook after hook, never letting up. Opening with a synthesized shakuhachi flute, the song builds from there. The huge, stomping beat coupled with the monster horns drive this song home straight into your brain. The guitar and bass propel the song in perfect sink with the beat. The backing vocals at the end of the song add to the Stax vibe. Gabriel sings the song with just the right amount of braggadocio. 10.

Merry Christmas to best group of strangers that feel like friends!

Welp Billy blocked me on IG so I’m not sure I have the authority to apologize for this anymore but I sincerely apologize anyway, I also apologize to Billy for asking him why he doesn’t “get up there” and sing in that EEEEEEENNNGGGHHHH register anymore, I guess that makes him mad

Is the “you write like Stevie Nicks” supposed to be an insult? I wouldn’t even consider that a downgrade from Jim Morrison, personally. But imagine you’re the guy whose most memorable lyric is “doo doo doo, doo do do doo doo” and you try to shade someone by comparing them to Stevie Nicks.

Hey Gummers. Similar to what dansolo and Chazpod have now done for years with albums, I aggregated everyone’s song lists from the comments of Stereogum’s Best Songs of the Year post. I did this in 2018 and I’m bringing it back in 2020.

Overall, there were 1,037 individual song entries tallied, with 655 distinct songs in total from 397 artists.

Song lists require a different tallying approach than albums do, since everyone’s lists vary so much more. You don’t want to give too much weight to highly ranked songs at the cost of those with broad appeal, when there are so many songs at play. I assigned 3 points to 1st-place votes, 2 points to 2nd-place votes, 1 point to songs ranked 3-10 (or on an unranked list of 10), and 0.5 points to songs ranked 11 through 20 (or on an unranked list of 20-ish).

The first tiebreaker was the number of total appearances each song made across all lists. In a change from last time I did it, the second tiebreaker was based on “artist points,” i.e. how many total points did each artist receive when combining all of their songs. When artists have a ton of great songs in a year, they sometimes get screwed in the voting since it’s harder to reach a consensus on what their best song is, so I wanted to give them some benefit in the tiebreaking process. But again, the points and number of appearances are still more important.

Now presenting, our very own official 50 Best Songs of 2020. Next to each song in parentheses, you’ll find the total points and the total appearances.

01. Phoebe Bridgers: “I Know the End” (20.5, 12)
02. Waxahatchee: “Fire” (16.5, 12)
03. Soccer Mommy: “circle the drain” (14.5, 13)
04. Yves Tumor: “Kerosene!” (14, 10)
05. SAULT: “Wildfires” (12.5, 6)
06. Yves Tumor: “Gospel for a New Century” (12, 8)
07. Panopticon: “Rune’s Heart” (10, 5)
08. Nation of Language: “The Wall & I” (9.5, 6)
09. The 1975: “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” (8.5, 5)
10. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: “Cars in Space” (8.5, 5)

11. The Strokes: “The Adults Are Talking” (8, 9)
12. Charli XCX: “forever” (8, 6)
13. Perfume Genius: “On the Floor” (8, 6)
14. Christine and the Queens: “People, I’ve been sad” (8, 5)
15. Waxahatchee: “Lilacs” (7.5, 6)
16. Phoebe Bridgers: “Garden Song” (7, 8)
17. Grimes: “Delete Forever” (7, 7)
18. Romy: “Lifetime” (7, 4)
19. Perfume Genius: “Describe” (6.5, 5)
20. Porridge Radio: “Lilac” (6, 6)

21. Taylor Swift: “exile (ft. Bon Iver)” (6, 5)
22. Jeff Rosenstock: “The Beauty of Breathing” (6, 4)
23. Phoebe Bridgers: “Kyoto” (5.5, 6)
24. Run the Jewels: “JU$T (ft. Pharrell Williams & Zack de la Rocha)” (5.5, 6)
25. Fiona Apple: “Heavy Balloon” (5.5, 5)
26. Destroyer: “Cue Synthesizer” (5.5, 5)
27. HAIM: “I Know Alone” (5.5, 4)
28. Frances Quinlan: “Your Reply” (5.5, 4)
29. Jessie Ware: “What’s Your Pleasure?” (5.5, 3)
30. Bartees Strange: “Boomer” (5, 6)

31. HAIM: “The Steps” (5, 5)
32. Fiona Apple: “I Want You to Love Me” (5, 4)
33. Tame Impala: “Breathe Deeper” (5, 3)
34. Bonny Light Horseman: “The Roving” (5, 3)
35. The Weeknd: “After Hours” (5, 3)
36. King Krule: “Stoned Again” (5, 3)
37. Dion: “Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America) (ft. Paul Simon)” (5, 2)
38. Gorillaz: “Aries” (4.5, 6)
39. Jessie Ware: “Spotlight” (4.5, 5)
40. Jamie xx: “idontknow” (4.5, 5)

41. Fiona Apple: “Shameika” (4.5, 4)
42. Caribou: “Never Come Back” (4.5, 4)
43. Lingua Ignota: “O Ruthless Great Divine Director” (4.5, 4)
44. Sufjan Stevens: “The Ascension” (4.5, 3)
45. Khruangbin: “So We Won’t Forget” (4.5, 3)
46. Dua Lipa: “Physical” (4, 5)
47. Charli XCX: “claws” (4, 4)
48. The 1975: “Me & You Together Song” (4, 4)
49. Dogleg: “Fox” (4, 4)
50. Westerman: “Blue Comanche” (4, 4)

Top 10 artists with the most total points: Phoebe Bridgers (34.5), Waxahatchee (30), Yves Tumor (28), Fiona Apple (22), SAULT (19), Charli XCX (18.5), Perfrume Genius (18), Soccer Mommy (17.5), Run the Jewels (17), Tame Impala (15.5)

Top 10 artists with the most song appearances across all lists: Phoebe Bridgers (28), Waxahatchee (26), Fiona Apple (22), Run the Jewels (20), Yves Tumor (19), Charli XCX (17), Soccer Mommy (16), Perfume Genius (15), Jessie Ware (14), The Strokes (14), Taylor Swift (14), Fleet Foxes (14).

Artists with the highest number of distinct songs that received at least one vote: Run the Jewels, Tame Impala, and Caribou (each with 7); Waxahatchee, Fiona Apple, SAULT, Perfume Genius, Jessie Ware, Taylor Swift, Fleet Foxes, Dogleg, Dua Lipa, and Roisin Murphy (each with 6).

Here were some artists that had a huge difference between their total artist points and their highest ranked song (i.e. they received a lot of total points, but had so many good songs that the points were spread out too far to have a high-ranked song): Fiona Apple (4th in artist points, highest ranked song was 25th), Tame Impala (10th in artist points, highest ranked song was 33rd), Caribou (14th in artist points, highest ranked song was 42nd), Fleet Foxes (18th in artist points, highest ranked song was 60th), Dogleg (20th in points, highest ranked song was 49th), and one of the most egregious ones, Roisin Murphy (30th in artist points, highest ranked song was 137th). Others in this category: Dua Lipa, Rina Sawayama, Against All Logic, Bob Dylan, and Moses Sumney.

Also, here’s a Spotify playlist with these 50 songs. Enjoy: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1NT2p1CpZil4xwQXonH7Fl?si=-dZL70wmTjC4RpPofzaqrA

This one really pushes the buttons. The title, the association with the past, the soft focus video in the beautiful little town of Whitby, a place I’ve many happy memories of.

We never had family holidays. Each summer me and my sister were sent off to my grandparents for a week. And each year my grandma would take us somewhere on the train, seems ridiculous now but this was a real treat. It was the only time we ever went on a train. One year she chose Whitby for us. It would have been around ’85/’86 and was the first time I’d been there.

I’ve been back many times since. Me and my now wife drove over there for our 3rd date. A memorable camping trip a few months after that with Mrs J and a big group of us in a field just outside in Whitby featuring an irate farmer telling us to get out of that field and get to bed. And in the last few years taking our daughter there. Our last visit was summer ’19, we explored the graveyard that Mick wanders through while the rest of the band play cricket – my daughter asked us about death, one of those times when you think it might have been a good idea to be prepared for these sorts of questions. Its a stunning setting, you climb up 199 steps to the top of the cliff with the graveyard and church on the edge of the land and the ruins of Whitby Abbey alongside.

Being in such an exposed position a lot of the gravestones have weathered away so you can’t see the inscriptions but they go back hundreds of years. Its steeped in history and fires the imagination, long before Simply Red pitched up, Dracula washed up in Whitby and took in his own tour of the graveyard.

I’m at the time of life where mortality creeps in. I’m down to one parent and one grandparent, statistically I’m past halfway myself. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the past. About the memories from childhood and the people that played such a large part in that period of my life who are now gone. There’s a sadness in knowing that as special as those memories are there’ll never be any new ones with those people.

I look at that video and and listen to Mick sing about holding back the years and it makes me think of the past. Of my grandma and how at that time we visited Whitby all that concerned me as a kid was the here and now. Time felt limitless. I’m sure I’m not the only one that looks back and thinks how did I get to here. Not in a bad way. Just as a kid there was the innocence of having no concept what life is actually like as an adult. In my 20s I felt invincible, everything felt possible, money in my pocket for the first time and adventures to be had. I get so much joy from my daughter but there’s also that part of my brain thinking how did I end up here? Seems like just a few weeks ago I was out drinking with friends most nights of the week, no hangovers, going to work on a few hours sleep and with no thought that life would ever result in such responsibilities.

This song, that title, that video. Its a sensory experience that affects me in a way that I could never have expected even a few years ago. That’s the beauty of music, film, literature that it can pick you up and take you somewhere in your mind, back into your memories. Doesn’t even always have to be a great song, its the association that matters. It sure helps that this is such a melancholic song, even if Mick’s evocation of the past is coming from a different angle – he wants to escape it whereas I am holding onto it. I haven’t heard it in years but I’m glad to hear it again now. It inspires a lot of emotions, happy and sad but those emotions and those memories are the stuff of life and proof that its all worth it.

That band name sure makes for a confusing article headline.

(As for disclaimers: I’ll cite them en masse:
Apologies to Schulz, Seuss… and Rankin & Bass…)

I’m reminded: “This Place Is For Music Discussion,”
For topics of melody, song, and percussion.
When posting a tangent, or dopey old bit?
… I often feel guilty when clicking “Submit.”

Your patience with all my ridiculous stunts
Has lifted my spirits… and more than just once.
So straight from my heart, it’s for every good friend,
An attempt to pay back, as we come to year’s end.

So grab Dollar Store readers, and join in my mission
As we celebrate Christmas, in TNOCS tradition.
Take care of each other, help those who might fall,
Have a peaceful new year,
and…

Rain on me was a very bad song to begin with, I have to admit he did it better than the original. But I wouldn’t even come close to calling this man’s talents or traditions “unlike any other.” In fact, I was overwhelmed by the plainness. It’s unfortunate that the American penchant for cheap, acoustic versions of songs has permeated Europe.

It’s hard to think of a band who sold out more completely then Genesis. Every they did after 1980’s ‘Duke’ is complete and utter garbage. This album is horrible, and this has to be one of the worst songs of all time. Total s**t.

This song speaks truth! What a bunch of dipsh*t, snowflake, loser commenters on this site. Wondering how you decide which @ss to kiss, Anthony Fauci’s or Joe Biden’s?

Clapton and Morrison have more money, talent,fame,and glory in their pinky fingers than do all of the whining, demeaning nobodies combined who have negatively commented on their great new Anti lock down record. Clapton and Morrison will be remembered forever. These losers will be forgotten after you read their stupidity.

I mean has he attempted to resolve this amicably with Fenty? Because suing Rihanna as a first step makes him seem like an asshole. Reality check: problems can be solved without lawsuits!

i love that eve 6 guy is legitimately very funny! You go eve 6 guy! i still enjoy the heart in a blender song just as much now as I did on the way to soccer practice in 1999!