Part 5 - #20 to #1
20. Kesha – “Praying”
The last few years have been a very trying time for Kesha, after it was revealed to the world that the pop singer was a previously the victim to sexual assault and abuse by her ex-producer Dr. Luke. With all that considered, the fact that Kesha was able to come back from it at all was an admirable feat in itself. It makes her comeback single, the piano ballad “Praying”, all the more compelling. In a change of pace from her massive hits, “Praying” is a powerful song about walking away from the past and not letting it hold you back any further, featuring sweeping strings, stellar songwriting and a massive falsetto. It’s a different side of Kesha that many people never knew she had. And speaking as a former Kesha hater from 2010, I can say that I’ve never been happier to see her come back, stronger than ever.
19. Dua Lipa – “New Rules”
One of the year’s rising stars in pop hails from England, but is of Albanian descent, which has started to become more and more common in pop stars, as evident by the successes of Rita Ora and Bebe Rexha. In “New Rules”, Dua finds herself conflicted; she finds herself still having feelings for a man who doesn’t love her back anymore. Looking back at this situation, she devises a plan and boils it down to three simple steps, which she tells herself to stop her from coming back. The music video is a tightly choreographed extra which adds something special to the song, in which Dua dances with multiple other female dancers as she sings, to help illustrate that she wants to share her rules as an unwritten code through the bond of sisterhood and female friendship.
18. Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee (feat. Justin Bieber) – “Despacito” [Remix]
2017 was the year that the world found itself enamored by an unstoppable, sexually charged dancehall-inspired party track sung mostly in the Spanish language. Of course, this isn’t the first time this has even happened, but two whole decades after “Macarena” took the world by storm, “Despacito” showed the world that the combination of romance and a great dance beat can brighten someone’s day, regardless of language barriers. The story of this song’s massive success can be broken into two parts. The original version teams up two Puerto Rico superstars, Luis Fonsi (Who, despite never achieving Enrique Iglesias’ success in the English-speaking world, has been a massive superstar in the Latin charts) and Daddy Yankee (Who most people may remember for his 2005 rap hit “Gasolina”). But of course, this song wouldn’t have skyrocketed into the English-speaking world without recruiting Justin Bieber, one of the most famous people in the whole world, whether you love it or hate it.
17. Lorde (feat. Khalid, Post Malone & SZA) – “Homemade Dynamite” [Remix]
“Homemade Dynamite” started its life in the public eye with a live performance prior to the release of Melodrama, and soon was slated to be the second single off the album. However, in a tragic turn of events, Lorde was required to push forward its single release, due to the questionable lyrical content possibly causing controversy in the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks at Manchester. Because of this, Lorde was given more time to refine the song and turn it into something different. The result is a remix which sees her teaming up with three of 2017’s biggest up and comers, Khalid, SZA and Post Malone. Each of the singers provide their own verse on track, as if it were a rap posse cut. But here, it achieves a different purpose, acting as a four different perspectives of the same party. This culminates with the four singers intertwining their voices in the final chorus, which sounds amazing.
16. Ed Sheeran – “Galway Girl”
On “Galway Girl”, Ed takes his love for Irish folk with his acoustic pop and hip hop sensibilities to create a fusion which pays homage to the past, while also still sounding very modern. In the song, he tells the story of how he fell in love with a charming Irish girl, through a long night of singing, drinking, dancing and wandering the streets of the Irish town. There’s lyrical references to Van Morrison, Gaelic tattoos, and just when you thought it couldn’t get more over-the-top Irish, there’s a nice fiddle riff under his vocals that helps tie things together.
15. Julia Michaels – “Issues”
Julia Michaels is half of one of the most influential songwriting partnerships currently working in the music industry (the other of which is former glam rock singer Justin Tranter). Together, they wrote some of biggest pop songs from the last few years. Justin Bieber’s “Sorry”? That was them. Selena Gomez’ “Hands To Myself”? That was them too. “Issues” was the first time Michaels ventured out of songwriting, in an effort to become a popstar in her own right. Michaels says that she chose to sing the song herself because she felt it was too personal to hear it being sung by someone else. After listening to “Issues”, the common link between songs by Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Hailee Steinfeld become more apparent. The trademark Tranter/Michaels quirks are all still here; the whispery vocals, the minimal instrumentation and the clicking percussion. Suddenly it all makes sense.
14. Selena Gomez – “Bad Liar”
I had never been particularly impressed with Selena Gomez in the past. Out of her Disney contemporaries, Miley Cyrus had the iconic looks and attitude, and Demi Lovato had the voice to shatter all your windows. With the other two taking up those spaces, Selena always seemed to me as the one with limited range and mostly known for being Bieber’s girlfriend all those years ago, which is unfair. But 2017 was the year I started to change my opinions on Selena, due to her masterful picking of EDM collaborations (see “It Ain’t Me” & “Wolves”) and her work with Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, which helped her to find appropriate music for her vocal range. “Bad Liar” is by far the best thing that she’s released this year, and to anyone who knows my recent obsession with the 80’s, it’s obvious what this track in particular did to win me over. A Talking Heads sample! When I look back it, it’s crazy how the Psycho Killer bassline hadn’t been sampled in a pop song before this, because it works perfectly here. It’s tense, it’s simple, it’s great to bop along to.
13. Paramore – “Hard Times”
The story of Paramore over the course of the last decade is a rather interesting one. Since I discovered them in 2007 with their furious “Misery Business”, they have gone on to have the more interesting story arcs out of any band borne of the 2000’s pop-punk wave. The band’s career has been notable for constant lineup changes, tensions between band members and the band’s sonic experiments as they shift away from rock to pop while trends shifted around them, much to the chagrin of a portion of their fanbase. “Hard Times” and the After Laughter album is yet another interesting entry in the Paramore story. A product created from a combination of things like Hayley Williams’ ongoing battle with depression and her failed marriage with ex-husband Chad Gilbert, “Hard Times” sonically pulls from new wave, tropical pop and African-influenced rhythms, to coat Williams’ signature snark in bright, shimmering colours.
12. Halsey – “Now Or Never”
In 2017, Halsey released her second album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, which saw her expand her sonic palette, list of collaborators and songwriting. It strung together a loose narrative between two lovers, inspired by Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaption of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet”. The first taste that the world got of this album was the single “Now Or Never”, in which Halsey introduces the audience to this world, where the crossing of two lovers’ paths can create danger in the dark world they live in. In the song, Halsey’s character provides an ultimatum to her lover, where the difference between loving and leaving could mean all the difference in the world. In terms of sound, “Now Or Never” sees Halsey taking a more trendy mainstream sound in comparison to her previous efforts on Badlands. The song specifically takes R&B-inspired direction, heavily taking elements from Rihanna’s “Needed Me” to set the dark, yet seductive tone.
11. Taylor Swift – “…Ready For It?”
When the biggest pop star in the world has reached the top, one can assume that only way from there is back down. The past two years have not been kind to Taylor Swift, whether it was the ongoing controversies between her and Kanye West and Katy Perry, or it was the criticisms thrown at her for lack of response towards certain world events. But despite the constantly changing public perception towards her in this controversy-marked era, Taylor came back to widespread media attention with “Reputation”; a new, darker step into the popstar’s ever-evolving back catalogue. And the album opens with what may be the most abrasive sounding song that Max Martin may have ever helped create. Based around skittering hi-hats, distorted drums and a loud bassline, “Ready For It?” has been compared to industrial pop, some even commenting it sounds almost like Treats-era Sleigh Bells.
10. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
In the few years that I’ve been reading music blogs, I’ve seen a common complaint by many reviewers that the alternative bands breaking into the charts aren’t really “indie”. While that may be a legitimate criticism, Portugal. The Man are the real deal. They’ve been indie darlings since their debut album in 2006, and with this song as their breakout, they’ve finally struck commercial gold on their 8th album. And even they did it through its use as a soundtrack on multiple advertisements, you can see that this hit has been a long time coming to the band.
“Feel It Still” is a throwback of sorts, a homage to the progressive pacifist spirit, chill psychedelic vibes and smooth funk of the 1960’s. In a way, the song itself seems acknowledges the fact that it stands out, like a song dropped into our world from a different time. But with that, it also reminds us how important that era was in creating the culture we have today. The revolution of the 60’s may “be over now”, but in our music and in our culture, we can “feel it still”.
9. Harry Styles – “Sign Of The Times”
Looking back at my old Facebook posts, I think it’s safe to say I only really used to hate One Direction because it was the cool thing to do. Sure, some of their more pandering lyrics are still something to cringe at, but I can’t deny that somewhere hidden in there, you could hear Harry Styles expressing his love for classic rock. You could hear it in “Best Song Ever” where they imitate The Who, or on “Steal My Girl” where they echo Journey.
Eventually, One Direction reached its inevitable demise, and it became time for the respective members to go solo. While Zayn and Niall had come to debut on their own before him. Harry Styles’ debut single was everything I loved from One Direction, refined into something even better. In the space of less than six minutes, “Sign Of The Times” sees Styles covering the many touchstones of British rock; David Bowie’s theatrics, Queen’s melodrama and Oasis’ grandiosity, among many others. From a lyrical point of view, I’ve also found the song to have a rather touching sentiment, as Styles explains:
“The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.’”
8. Bleachers – “Don’t Take The Money”
2017 has been a big year for one Jack Antonoff. The first time I had heard of him was during his time as the guitarist of his previous band Fun. in 2012, even helping write and play on one of my favourite songs of all time, “We Are Young”. The five years that have passed since have seen him become one of the most influential producers in the world of pop. This year alone, Antonoff has had a hand in providing his slick production style for artists such as Lorde, Taylor Swift, P!nk and St. Vincent.
But this year, he also released one of the best synthpop tracks of the year under his solo moniker Bleachers, which unfortunately went past unnoticed by most of the general public. “Don’t Take The Money” is a showcase of his favourite production quirks all in one song, from the 80’s synth textures and gated reverb, to Jack’s weird vocal inflections, and vocals which range from muttering to shouting. Also, you can hear Lorde singing backing vocals in the final choruses of the song, and that’s always a win for me.
7. The Chainsmokers & Coldplay – “Something Just Like This”
Like the aforementioned Lil Uzi Vert, The Chainsmokers are another artist in the current modern pop landscape that you wouldn’t expect to be big modern rock fans, but the signs have been there. They’ve been noted fans of bands like Linkin Park and Muse, and they even referenced Blink-182 on their biggest hit single. Love them or hate them, they still grew up listening to the samebands as many of us. So when the opportunity came for the EDM duo to collaborate with the biggest 2000’s band of them all, it would make sense for them to grab that chance.
For the most part, “Something Just Like This” uses all the same tricks from both the Chainsmokers and Coldplay playbooks. Chris Martin lays down some emotional lyrics about his insecurities and his fears that, to his new lover, he cannot compare to the legends and the myths that he’s read about. His lover then assures him that she loves him for who he is. The instrumental, for the most part, it sounds the Chainsmokers’ earlier hit “Roses” if the melody was rearranged. However, it isn’t until that moment in the final chorus where The Chainsmokers’ drop fuses with Jonny Buckland’s guitar riff, at which point the two worlds collide perfectly and the entire collaboration falls into place.
6. Lorde – “Perfect Places”
The late teens and the early half of the 20’s is a very complicated age for a person. It’s commonly a time where a person grows in their mentality, as they learn more about the world and their place in it. And with that, comes that loss of innocence and the realization that many of us are aiming to feel a certain happiness, and a certain perfect in our lives, one that constantly seems unattainable. Some seek these feelings through drugs, some seek it through sex, some seek it through alcohol.
In “Perfect Places”, Lorde looks at society, as well as within herself, at how we as adolescents use these practices to get us to these feelings of perfection. As the party of Melodrama winds down to a close, she reflects on whether these behaviours really get us anywhere, or if we’re all looking for a state of happiness and perfection and coming up empty. There’s a sense of insecurity and lack of assuredness that makes this track brutally honest, especially coming from someone of Lorde’s age. At this point in our lives, many of us might not exactly know what we’re doing. Maybe we’ll never feel the youth we used to when we were younger. Maybe there’s no such thing as a perfect place. And maybe that’s okay.
5. Kendrick Lamar – “HUMBLE.”
If you’ve been following the charts and the trends over the past year or so, you may have noticed a big change in the waters. Hip hop and rap are coming back, and in a big way. Of course, they’ve always been there anyway, but with new streaming avenues such as Soundcloud and Spotify continuing to grow, this new generation of hip hop thrived in 2017 more than it has in over a decade. Being the chart-watching guy that I am, it’s clear to see that a lot of these new acts have spilled onto this very list. Before this year, I wouldn’t have thought to pay as much attention as I did to the likes of Post Malone, Lil Uzi Vert, Logic, Migos or Future. So it would make complete sense that I would honour this new era of rap by reserving a spot on my top 5 for the greatest rap artist of our generation.
Building his successes over numerous mixtapes and his three studio albums, “HUMBLE.” was the lead single to Kendrick Lamar fourth studio album, DAMN., and it has rather appropriately acted as a sort-of coronation of Lamar as the king of the rap game. At its centre, it simply a diss track to his competition, but with this context in mind, it feels like so much more. “HUMBLE.” is about being genuine. It’s about being true to yourself, and how relentless human ambition can bring one from eating syrup sandwiches to being the biggest rapper alive. And the fact that this has been received with universal acclaim from both the critics and from the general public, is an overall win for genuine artistry.
4. Halsey (feat. Lauren Jauregui) – “Strangers”
On her previous album, Halsey showed that she had ambitions to be a different, boundary-pushing kind of pop-star, and as shown by the critical reception to songs like “New Americana”, that didn’t quite work out for her. Luckily for her, “Strangers” has given her another opportunity to push the boundaries, which sees her team up with Fifth Harmony vocalist and fellow openly bisexual singer Lauren Jauregui. “Strangers” may not be the first time that LGBT women in pop have made their mark on the popular music industry. Tegan & Sara released two big pop albums over the last few years, but they’ve never quite achieved mainstream acceptance. One can say that t.A.T.u. got there a decade ago with “All The Things She Said”, but it after the rising homophobic culture in Russia, it was revealed that they were faking it all along.
But “Strangers” feels different. When Halsey and Jauregui are singing to each other, it’s not because they want to cause a big deal out of it (even though the media might do that anyway), or because they want to show off to the boys. Rather, it’s because their characters in the song have a genuine connection to each other; there’s a very real conflict in how they feel they can’t have each other, and that distinction is what makes it a lot more real. In the past ten years, we’ve come from Katy Perry singing “It’s not what good girls do” to Halsey and Jauregui singing that “We’re just strangers, with the same damn hunger…to feel anything at all.” If that’s not a sign of how far our society has come to accept the LGBT community and understand how their relationships are as complex as any other, I’m not sure what is.
3. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
For a few years, I was afraid that Imagine Dragons were doomed to be one-album wonders. Their debut album Night Visions defined a period of my life where I was going through a lot of changes; beginning my time in university, making new experiences and meeting new people. In 2013, I found beacons of hope in songs like “It’s Time” and “Amsterdam”, and strength in songs like “Radioactive”. But with that album, the band saw stratospheric success, and it seemed showed in their song-writing. Their follow-up album Smoke + Mirrors, was a relatively darker and more experimental record, with lyrics that can be interpreted to be about self-doubt (“Shots”), maintaining relationships (“I Bet My Life”) and dealing with fame (“Gold”). It was not as commercially successful as their debut, but I still liked it very much.
This year saw the band return with their third album, and one which was preceded a stomper of a lead single. “Believer” almost sounds like a rock band’s re-interpretation of Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead”; with its industrial-sounding shuffling percussion, and Dan Reynolds’ almost primal screams (PAIN!!). In the song, we see Reynolds looking over at his past failures and the pain he has suffered over the years. Instead of letting this bring him down, he calls himself into action and channels this energy to find new strength in his life to believe in himself. The whole song just feels mighty and triumphant, like it’s pumping with life and ready to head back into the arena, stronger than ever before. And at a time like this, it’s the exact kind of optimistic energy I (and all of us) could really use right now.
2. Ed Sheeran – “Castle On The Hill”
Nostalgia is a very powerful thing. Something as little as a photograph can bring back to mind a whirlwind of various emotions. It can all be hard to explain, but somehow “Castle On The Hill” perfectly captures the essence of this mixture of nostalgic feelings, distilled directly into one pop song, complete with a Mumford & Sons-esque stomp, and a thrilling chorus anchored by U2-like guitar jangles. It sounds like coming-of-age movie trailer song, but damn it, it sounds like a really good one. I hope I’m not making a bold claim when I say that I think this may be one of the best songs that Ed has ever written. It sounds like the kind of song that you wait a few albums to write because it means a lot more that way.
In the song, Ed drives back to his old hometown to look back at his past, the friends he made when he was younger, the places he went to and the memories that he shared. We see his story unfold over the years, as he tells stories of broken legs and hand-rolled cigarettes. It makes sense that he would release this track at the same time as his other single “Shape Of You”. While that track showed us Ed Sheeran, the superstar, “Castle On The Hill” shows us that Ed had to start from somewhere like the rest of us. Perhaps our stories didn’t happen all exactly the same way, but in the way that we all have our own childhood memories that we hold dearly. This year has given me a lot of spare time to reflect at my life and look back at my past, and the places I went in life just to get here. While I may only be 21 years old, it’s songs like these that remind me that those little moments are the ones we cherish in our hearts forever.
But while we look into the past, there is a future ahead that awaits us…
1. Lorde – “Green Light”
2017 has been a very different year for me. It’s the first time in 16 years that I have not been going through some sort of education. Graduating from university last year left me not with many answers, but rather with a lot of questions about my life; questions which one year later still linger on in my mind. Who am I now? What do I do next? Where do I go from here? This new kind of confusion is something that I’ve felt many times this year, and one that especially creeps up on me whenever I’m thinking about my future. Where “Castle On The Hill” looks to the past, “Green Light” looks to the future. Perhaps not the long run, but the immediate future in the face of a pivotal event of one’s life. Lorde wrote this song in the aftermath of her first breakup, detailing the process of moving on and seeking new direction despite all confusion.
“I realized this is that drunk girl at the party dancing around crying about her ex-boyfriend who everyone thinks is a mess. That’s her tonight and tomorrow she starts to rebuild.” Lorde said of the song. While it’s not an experience I can exactly relate to, it makes perfect sense to me, because it encapsulates how it feels to wait and yearn for a new direction, right after a big change in your life has taken you away from all you’ve ever known. For me, the story of this song was more of an analogy for being thrown out into the real world after all these years. When I graduated, life changed a lot. All of a sudden, life was quieter. Friends started to seem more distant. Days started to become indistinguishable and blurred together. And while I would sometimes go to places I used to go to, I’d see traces of who I used to be, but I wouldn’t quite recognize it as part of myself anymore.
“Green Light” is a rollercoaster of a song; it’s lively when it’s loud, and it’s tense when it’s quiet. Just like “Heathens” last year, the song begins simply with the sound of a piano and a lone vocal. Here, we find Lorde is still visibly shaken by the events that just happened; “I know about what you did and I want to scream the truth”. The song really starts to build in the pre-chorus, where Jack Antonoff’s jangly pianos create tension before giving way to a chorus which explodes with life. It’s got a pounding dance beat, siren-sounding synths, and a choir of multiple Lordes responding to her in the chorus (“I’m waiting for it! That green light! I want it!”). Not only does Antonoff’s bombastic production set it apart as a far cry from the minimalist synth-pop textures of her debut album, but it also sets the entire scene for the whole Melodrama album, which soundtracked a large portion of my year. If you look through the list, you’ll see that almost every track from the album made it onto the list, which is something just never happens. It’s an intense album with thrilling highs and moody lows, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should. But “Green Light” is special in that it can stand out on its own; it encapsulates all of the emotions of the album in the space of four minutes, more than any other track ever could.
Just like Lorde, 2017 was the year that I started to rebuild too in a way; it was a year that I began to figure who I was without the context of school and family and everything that came before. While I can’t say that I have my answers figured out quite yet, I know I have hope that someday soon I can be someone new; someone that doesn’t define themselves by what happened before, but by what is happening now.
“I hear sounds in my mind. Brand new sounds in my mind.”#100 to #81 | #80 to #61 | #60 to #41 | #40 to #21 | #20 to #1 | Full List
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