Every year I go through the motions of documenting my favorite 100-150 songs of the year. Every. Single. Year. Well, there must have been a starting point. And that year was 2004. The song that topped my chart in 2004? The Stars’ “Your Ex-Lover is Dead.”
And this is the moment I realized I’ve been doing this with damned thing with Michael Smith of the bsidnesnarrative.com for 20 fucking years.
His favorite song of 2004? Also, “Your Ex-Lover is Dead.”
Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time since our very first lists in 2004, we once again share the same #1 song. Since I’m not going to bury the lede, it’s “Right Back To It” by Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman.
I’m not sure what that means, but it lends some nice symmetry to a 20th Anniversary post about music list-making.
The (Long) History of Best Of: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012
I’m fearful of 2025, for reasons beyond the obvious trepidations about handing over the keys to the country (again) to a grade-A certified piece of shit. I’ve churned through enough of my thoughts about that over on Medium.com through the #365Songs project, so I won’t belabor the obvious here.
2025 portends to be a year of personal growth. I’ve deemed it so. It’s the year I (finally) learn to swim, read Moby Dick, finish this screenplay, (earnestly) begin a novel, etc. In order to distract myself from the grim realities, I hope to be better. That’s really it. I hope to be the person I imagine I could be–if I just put one foot in front of the other, day after day, to right wrongs, reach for dreams, put aside fears, and live my life.
Music keeps us on the path, it soundtracks the footsteps, and marks time, emboldening memories and sticking flags in the ground along the way. I know 2004 because I remember the things that happened while I played that Stars record over and over and over again. Living in Boston, getting my MFA, (barely) working days at MIT as a professors’ assistant at the Sloan School of Business. I watched a lot of British TV and fell in love with Red Dwarf.
In 2004, I found a voice, I found a calling. I’m still trying to make it reality.
As far as this list, goes this is just one guy’s attempt to keep up with music all of all shapes and sizes. The rankings? Well, they’re pretty arbitrary. Beyond the Top 25 or so, they’ll be in a constant state of flux. It’s not like I think 144 is a bad song, like it’s just an honor to make the roster. On any given day, any given moment, #97 could be my absolute favorite song in the universe.
One consistent fault of the list is that certain songs catch my ear at the tail end of the December as I cull and sift through the music of the year — and those songs never really have the chance to march up into the top few dozen. There’s thirty more songs that I regret not forcing in here, somewhere, just because they might grow on me.
On a few occasions I swapped songs from a single artist in and out of the same place of the countdown (Vampire Weekend, The Cure) and for the sake of my sanity, I just put both songs in the same position and called it a day.
I try to order the list like a mix tape, spacing out artists and genres for listening pleasure.
- Right Back to It – Waxahatchee, MJ Lenderman
- All I Ever Am – The Cure
- Honeycrash – SASAMI
- Docket – Blondshell, Bully
- Dream police – Mk.gee, Two star
- run away girl – Alice Merton
- Old Tape – Lucius (feat. Adam Granduciel)
- Afterlife – Sharon Van Etten
- Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan
- Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar
- Casual Drug Use – Katie Gavin
- People in the Streets – MGMT
- Archbishop Harold Holmes – Jack White
- The Feminine Urge – The Last Dinner Party
- Life Is – Jessica Pratt
- My Day Off – Kacy Hill, Nourished by Time
- Love On The Outside – Wishy
- Atlantis – Kasbo, Shallou, BJOERN
- Dancer – IDLES, LCD Soundsystem
- M – Soccer Mommy
- Do 2 Me – KAYTRANADA, Anderson.Paak, SiR
- Sadness As a Gift – Adirenne Lenker
- Love Song – Lime Garden
- Any Way – L’Impératrice, Maggie Rogers
- Bad News – Hovvdy
- Anything Lost (Can Be Found Again) – DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ
- For Sure – Ethel Cain
- You Played Me (Chrome Sparks Remix) – DJ Shadow, Chrome Sparks
- Vertigo – Beach Bunny
- Reaching Out – Beth Gibbons
- Soup – Remi Wolf
- Patterns – Laura Marling
- Don’t Get Me Started – The Smile
- Come Find Me – Caribou
- Baby Blue Movie – Cigarettes After Sex
- kms – Los Campesinos!
- Starvation – AURORA
- Aey Nehin – Arooj Aftab
- In Denial – Philine Sonny
- Mean To Be Cold – CRX
- Power To Undo – Brittany Howard
- A Fragile Thing – The Cure
- I might say something stupid – Charli xcx, The 1975, Jon Hopkins
- Maryhead – R. Missing
- Candles – The Sunset Rubdown
- You Know I Love You Still – Kacy Hill
- Online Jesus – Keli Holiday, Alex Cameron
- The Kill = Maggie Rogers
- Yeern 101 – ScHoolboy Q
- Don’t Do Me Good – Medi Diaz, Kacey Musgraves
- clairbourne practice – julie
- Under Water / In Air – STRFKR, Ruth Radelet
- Magic I Want U – Jane Remover
- Stay With Me Through the Night – Fabiana Palladino
- One Last Dance – Baby Rose, BADBADNOTGOOD
- OMG – Suki Waterhouse
- Mahal – Glass Beams
- Widows of Normandy – Rye LaChance
- Are You Looking Up – Mk.gee
- Beetlebugs – Nick Leng
- Backyard Lover – Merce Lemon
- Loved – Four Tet
- Raining On Your Pillow – DIIV
- My Year – Da Beatminerz, De La Soul, Pharoah Monche, Rasheed Chappell, Corey Glover
- The Elevator – Guster
- Cigarettes & Wine – Del Water Gap, Holly Humberstone
- booboo – Yaeji
- Damn – Kacy Hill
- Løveskatt – On the Molecule
- Low Sun – Hermanos Gutierrez
- Dancing in Babylon – MGMT, Christine and the Queens
- Get Numb To It! – Friko
- Hand to Hand – Katy Kirby
- Alpharetta – Local Natives
- squabble up – Kendrick Lamar
- Cathedral City – Ducks Ltd.
- Home – Bat for Lashes
- Lucky – Erika de Casier
- stay for the night – Rxseboy, Fenne Lily
- Mood Ring – Dehd
- Death & Romance – Magdalena Bay
- Starburster – Fontains D.C.
- Sexy to Someone – Clairo
- Automatic – Roosevelt
- DENIAL IS A RIVER – Doechii
- Overtime – Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Kacey Musgraves
- Lovers Rock – TV Girl
- Rare – Bullion, Carly Rae Jepsen
- Sober – Bartees Strange
- Cinderella – Remi Wolf
- MANTO – Heems, Sid Vashi, Vijay Iyer
- Hawkmoon – Hooray for the Riff Raff
- Never Need Me – Rachel Chinouriri
- Not a Second to Waste – Leaf Dog
- Holy, Holy – Geordie Greep
- Sugar in the Tank – Julien Baker, TORRES
- Phantom Island – King Grizzard & The Lizard Wizards
- 4AM Ascension Day – Lâpsley
- Before Barbed Wire – Balmorhea
- Crocodile Tears – Lauren Mayberry
- I Guess Time Makes Fools of Us All – Father John Misty
- Coyote – Hairpin
- HIGHJACK – A$AP Rocky, Jessica Pratt
- Birds of a Feather – Billie Eilish
- All My Exes Live in Vortexes – Rosie Tucker
- Long Way Home – Myriam Gendron
- Baddy On The Floor – Jamie xx, Honey Dijon
- Magnetic – Tunde Adebimpe
- Mastermind Specialism – English Teacher
- Kiss Me (Kill Me) – RINSE, Hatchie
- Deep End – veronicavon
- Capricon – Vampire Weekend
- Gen-X Cops – Vampire Weekend
- Eat It and Beat It – Sheer Mag
- SPEYSIDE – Bon Iver
- Let’s Go Back – Jungle
- Maine – hey, nothing
- Side Quest – Pearl & The Oysters
- Ten Paces – Cowboy Sadness, Bing & Ruth, The Antlers, Port St. Willow
- Three Floors, Three Doors – Abby Sage
- You Slept On Me – Allie X
- Husk – Men I Trust
- Alone – The Cure
- And Nothing Is Forever – The Cure
- Downhill – Pom Pom Squad
- NEVER AGAIN – MICHELLE
- Motoroller – Pixies
- Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? – Taylor Swift
- luther – Kendrick Lamar, SZA
- Hot Dad – CARR
- Spring is Coming With A Strawberry In the Mouth – Caroline Polachek
- We Make Hits – Yard Act
- The Liminal (Unbound) – Chelsea Wolfe
- I’m All Fucked Up – This Is Lorelei
- Like I Say (I runaway) – Nilüfer Yanya
- May Ninth – Khruangbin
- Será mejor – Amaia Miranda
- Keeper of the Shepherd – Hannah Frances
- Annihilation – Wilco
- Your Apartment – Wallows
- Only One – Cassandra Jenkins
- December – illuminati hotties, Hopelessly Devoted To You
- Flex fm (freddit) – Joy Orbison, Lil Yachty, Future, Playboy Carti
- BYE BYE – Kim Gordon
So that’s the thing. Keep listening to music. Keep sharing music. Somedays, I think all we really have is music and coffee and without those two things society would break down into utter chaos.
Have a happy new year. I’ll see you on the other side.
