My Top 100 Songs of 2019
Hello, gays, gals, and ghouls. My name is Michael John, and I have made a list of my top 100 pop songs of the year annually for THIRTEEN years now. I care about pop music like I care about most things—so fucking much!!
Here’s how this works: I’ll give you a Spotify playlist and/or you’ll scroll down and read my deranged narrative walk-through of my favorite songs from this past year. Please note: the songs, their powers over me, and the write-up I’ve conjured up about them are all deeply personal. So, I’m not here trying to out-Pitchfork Pitchfork. I am, however, trying to claim the pun Peachfork… like… peach emoji… gay… Pitchfork media… get it? Anyways, my list should read like a personal essay about this gloriously strange year with a BANGING soundtrack.
I hope you’ll stick with it. I hope you’ll listen along. I hope you find something, musical or otherwise.
Shall we?
THE SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
(It’s in order from #1 onwards, so SPOILER ALERT!?! The countdown that follows goes in REVERSE order like a countdown is supposed to!!)
THE STORY OF THESE SONGS
105. All the Songs — Will Young
This is cute way to begin this list!! “All the songs remind me of you,” sings agéd gay and first-ever UK Pop Idol winner Will Young on the perfect chorus of this propulsive tears-on-the-dancefloor sadbanger. SENTIMENTALITY and DANCING! I dedicate this song — hell, this entire list — to you! You are reading this list, God willing, and all these gorgeous pop songs remind me of you, for better and for worst. All the songs remind me of tears shed, sweat spilled on dance floors or summertime walks, memories made over perhaps the best and most fulfilling year of my life thus far. Sheesh, all this to say for just #105? KEEP IT MOVING.
104. Love is on the House — Hifi Sean
103. Squidward Nose — cupcakke
Cupcakke worries me! Not because of her notoriously sex positive lyrics, but because she disappeared off social media after exposing Camila Cabello’s racism, claiming to have slept with Shawn Mendes, and coming for BTS. Then, she posted a very scary video filmed by someone breathing heavily off camera, in which she claimed to be quitting music because she was worried about all the impressionable children who were finding the devil through her profane music. She resurfaced a few months later looking snatched without comment. Anyways, “his dick smaller than my toes…/I’d rather a Squidward nose.” Incredible. This is my partner Brian’s least favorite song I play on the stereo as I work out at 8AM.
102. Let You — Cheryl
“You only got with this ‘cos I let you,” sings the former Girls Aloud singer and best Drag Race UK guest judge. It’s true; decision is power!
101. A Palé — Rosalía
THE FIRST of like FOUR APPEARANCES on this LIST by ROSALÍA, the utterly brilliant Spanish artist who is constantly GUNNING for title of WORLD’S BEST POP STAR whilst never (not once!) REMOVING her PLATFORM-SNEAKERED FOOT from MINE NECK!!! Throughout 2019, she released a string of divine pop singles that threaten her arrival as a crossover Force to be Reckoned With on her upcoming sophomore album. More on her as we go. COME ON WE’RE NOT EVEN AT #100 YET.
100. Win — Nasty Cherry
This is Charli XCX’s band, as in the band she scouted, put together, signed, and executive produced into existence. Honestly, she is the busiest lady! File this RAWK SAWNG about LOVE AS A COMPETITION under music to listen to while we wait for Sky Ferreira to put out another album!!!
099. Nice to Meet Ya — Niall Horan
He is my favorite former 1D member and the 1 D from that band I wouldn’t mind handling, ANYWAYS!!! On this aerodynamic banger, he goes all Robbie Williams channeling Blur and it makes me wet! I need to stop writing about this song now, bye!! (He is actually kind of boring looking? What’s wrong with me?)
098. No Ties — Disciples
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND! Every time a BIG FUCKING DANCE SONG appears on the list, I will announce that, okay? It’ll be fun! I love to dance. I wish I could go to a dance club where dancing was the priority and not hooking up. We have apps for that! I guess that’s why the clubs are all closing down these days. But I just wanna dance! My new years resolution for 2020 is to learn how to properly DJ so I can ruin every party I throw, once and for all. I mean it! As it is written, so it shall be done, HONEY!! Dance!!
097. Selfish — Little Simz feat. Cleo Sol on the HOOK
Little Simz was a finalist for the Mercury Prize, a prestigious UK music critics’ award, and should’ve one for her titanic GREY Area, an album about her Saturn’s return! Relatable! This song just SOUNDS fucking cool. Did you know I am an anglophile? I am, but it’s more about the culture and less about the empiricism and horrible politics! xx
096. Retrograde — Maggie Rogers
The gays have chosen their supreme and she is a small white woman who makes Stevie Nicks-indebted M.O.R. adult contemporary sadbangers! STAN! First of two appearances.
095. Hospitalized — Broods
I never believed Broods was a real band because The Algorithm kept feeding their music to me and yet I heard nothing about them from my many circles (I am very plugged in). But this song knocks HARD!!! I love choruses with a lot of words that take place on a lot of consequent sixteenth notes or whatever (I am not here for music theory, girls) — see VERY HIGH ENTRY “Never Really Over” by Katherine Perry!
094. Basic — Sigrid
Okay, why don’t we do with Sigrid what we did with Maggie Rogers. Must get rid of toxic in community. : ( This binch deserves ALL our support! Here is the first of three entries of this binch on my list. I am out here doing the work!! Sigrid (pronounced Sea-Grid) burst onto the scene with her 2017 single “Strangers” (which SLAPS — hey GOOGLE play “Strangers” by SEA-GRID). Then, she won BBC Sound of 2018 and stalled in label purgatory until she released her debut album Sucker Punch this year. It’s TOP-TO-BOTTOM BANGERS, all anchored by her icy, emotive Norwegian wail and diaristic lyrics.
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For example, here is a song called “Basic,” which could set Sigrid up for so many bad jokes about her music. BUT the song is too good, slicing its way into your heart on pink plonks that tell you it’s a tender song, surging synths that tell you it’s going to be okay, and so much percussion that tell you to GET UP AND DANCE — it is literally a BANGER! “I want to be basic, ‘cos you make me so complicated./Can I be basic with you?” Honestly, is Sigrid reclaiming “basic?” Iconic queer behavior, if so! I don’t think she is queer herself, but get into SIGRID, you gays!!
093. Pieces of Us — Mark Ronson and King Princess
First of two songs from Mark Ronson’s latest opus Late Night Feelings to make this LIST! King Princess, what a 2019 she had, huh? Mark Ronson is like the best producer in pop, isn’t he! Musings! Carrying on…
092. All the Time — Zara Larsson
Why the fuck does the music industry keep failing Zara Larsson? Give the girl a hit!! Feed her into the algorithm and make it HAPPEN!! Let her release an album!!! Like, okay maybe she doesn’t have a personality, but neither does Troye Sivan and we have practically deified that twink. AND!!! This absolutely glorious pop song OOZES personality! It is a lost Carly Rae Jepsen song that should’ve hit number one in EVERY TERRITORY on this planet and a few elsewhere in this gay galaxy!
091. Pretty Shining People (Jack Wins Remix) — George Ezra
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND! These lyrics are pretty bad, but this song made me smile and cry and bounce a lot while I walked to and from work this summer. It’s full-on inspirationalcore but for EDM kids, and I got trapped under its colossal chorus drop. Don’t help me out from under it; I like it down here!
090. Play — Betta Lemme
This song opens with ‘Betta’ going “Hallo… bonjouuur……. HI!!!!,” as a tiny Betta voice in the background goes “hey:)” all over production that sounds like the Vengaboys entered their PC Music phase and can only get booked to play the Berlin Sex Club circuit. Wig! Tea!!!! Electric chair!!! This is a GAY SONG!!!!!!!!!!
089. Light Years — The National
This is a straight song, but like… soft, so we stan. I love The National. I am a year sober on January 1, but I recently discovered dealcoholized red wine. This song is like dealcoholized red wine. It is romantic and warm and comforting and reminds me of big emotions without being destabilizing like actual red wine.
088. I Think He Knows — Taylor Swift
Ugh. The PR machine behind the release of Lover worked on me, and I have welcomed this binch back onto my playlists and JUST LIKE THAT, she’s landed three fucking perfect pop songs on my year-end list. This song was in the running to be the first single off Lover, instead of the insipid garbage fire that is “ME!” The lack of taste! Anyways, the best stuff on Lover is just 1989 bonus track material, and this is exactly that. #88, girls!
087. Eye in the Wall — Perfume Genius
Follow Perfume Genius on Twitter for a laugh while you cry and cast spells to his perfect, demented, baroque queer pop.
086. Flash Pose — Pabllo Vittar and Charli XCX
I saw Brazilian drag artist and pop star Pabllo Vittar at NYC #WorldPride #Pride50 #Stonewall50 sponsored by MasterCard this past summer and let me just tell you — she has more energy than the sun. Pabllo Vittar can solve the energy crisis. But it won’t be clean energy, honey, because this track is FILTHY, honey, yasssss!!!! Charli XCX should vocal fry rap more. That’s MY OPINION!!!
085. I Don’t Think I Can Do This Again — Mura Masa and Clairo
I don’t.
084. Party Up the Street — Miley Cyrus and Swae Lee
Miley was supposed to release an album this year but two things happened: (1) her marriage to her Hemsworth ended and (2) none of the singles she released this year sold more in 2019 than “Party in the USA.” You read that correctly. In this year alone, “Party in the USA” sold more than any of the singles Miley and RCA Records sent to radio, streaming, and had her trot out on the promotional circuit. That doesn’t mean they were bad, though! In fact, they may be the best songs she’s yet released. It’s all very puzzling. Here is the first of two entries from Miley on this list that reminds me of perfect summer nights — all humidity, romance, and possibility. : )
083. In the Mix — Mariah Carey
The legend!! Mariah is skinny!!! Okay, Mariah Carey broke a lot of records this year, but she also managed to toss out this absolutely glittering late-90s throwback track as a single to promote Blackish spin-off Mixedish. What is the music industry in 2019!?
082. When I Wasn’t Watching — Mandy Moore
Mandy Moore finally returned to music in 2019 after surviving being trapped under Ryan Adams’ grotesque fucking ego and gaslighting abuser ways. The music is perfect melancholy guitar pop rock and lit’rally soundtracked my dreams. I heard it in montages in my dreams. Promo!
081. Be Honest — Jorja Smith feat. Burna Boy
Smooth!
080. Faz Gostoso — Madonna (MADAME X) feat. Anitta
This is the first of two entries from Madame X, and I had to painfully cut one, so like… you’re welcome? Idk, I love this song. Fucking put some respect on Madonna’s name, you heathens.
079. Almost (Sweet Music) — Hozier
I’m white!
078. Global Warming — LPX
Ok I met LPX (Lizzie) when I backup danced for my best gerlt Sir Babygirl (three entries on this list) at her headline gig at Bushwick’s Elsewhere this past June. (Omg I am name dropping!!) Lizzie is an absolutely ascendent pop rock artist whose shimmering and anthemic choons won her fans all summer and fall as the electric opener for Marina’s Love & Fear tour.
077. The greatest — Lana Del Rey
A delirious, delightful, depressing ode to modern life from the gay poet laureate Lana Del Rey.
076. Missing You — Ingrid Michaelson
Ingrid Michaelson came to 2019 to give the gays everything they wanted with synth bangers about sex and romance, and it was largely slept on because… the project was a Stranger Things-inspired collection of songs? WHAT!? What is happening. Anyways, banger, you gays!
075. Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi — Rosalía and Ozuna
2 of 4 entries for best pop star on Earth Rosalía is a love duet with Ozuna. K!
074. Who Do You Love? — Kindness and Robyn
Let me just say that if Honey hadn’t been all over my 2018 list after its release late in the year, “Honey” would easily be my #1 song of 2019. No song did more for me this year. Anyways, “Who Do You Love?” is a gorgeous, rose-colored throwback ballad collaboration between Robyn and her label signee Kindness, a producer and DJ whose moniker is Kindness.
073. Imperfections — Celine Dion
“We’ve all got our own imperfections,” sings Celine Dion on this perfectly contemporary pop single from her like 72nd studio album Courage. Maybe she’s right, but I can’t find any on her, OKAY!??????
072. Rings a Bell — Allie X
I saw Allie X open for Charli XCX (X tour? Like what was happening? where was Xtina, omg she was in Vegas with all the hundreds of other girls who are only performing Vegas residencies these days)… Anyways, she is fucking bonkers and this song is like gay yazz pop. We love a fluid bass line. Right? I guess. What do I know! Allie X is the ghost of a gay Victorian boy who has seen the future and decided to make pop music about it. I know that!
071. FIND YOUR WAY BACK — Beyoncé
Why did she capitalize all the words in the title of this song from her Lion King sibling album The Gift? Beycause she can! THE GIFT!! SHE is THE GIFT, and don’t you forget it! Even if The Lion King (2019) was a diabolical cash grab!! Anyways, breezy Afropop-indebted excellence from the King of Pop!
070. religion (u can lay your hands on me) — Shura
Why DIDN’T she capitalize ANYTHING in the title of this song from her sophomore album forevher? Christ! Girls! Just bc Ariana is the biggest pop girl out there right now does not mean we forgot the shift key exists!! Omg nvm this song is so sexy, and Shura is a queer icon, so like, she’s queering capitalization.
069. So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings — Caroline Polachek
I think Pang is my favorite album of the year, and this is the first of three entries from it to make my list! Caroline Polachek (formerly of Chairlift) has made the perfect hybrid of Imogen Heap/Enya ice-pop, Stevie Knicks sorceressery, and PC music cling clangs. This song has everything: perfect lyrics, a nonsense bridge, a breathy and full-throated vocal performance, and it’s about someone being so sexy it’s depressing!! HARSH MY MELLOW, BOYS!! #69, that’s nifty. Serendipity!
068. Cruel Summer — Taylor Swift
Annie Clark (St. Vincent) co-wrote this iron-clad anthem with Taylor and Jack Antonoff. To be a fly on the wall!!!
067. Sizzling — Daphni and paradise
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND! I’m here for an uptempo, girls! Fucking DANCE!!!!!!!!
066. Official — Charlize XCX
Omg, first entry from Charli’s colossal and excellent self-titled album, and it makes me cry!! I love vulnerable Charli. Honestly, vulnerable Charli could murder Julia Michaels cold. Does that resonate? This song makes me cry! It is twinkly and mournful and romantic — Charli understands that the vulnerability inherent in falling deep in love is already a massive surrender. It’s a loss of ego and protection and comfort. It’s terrifying, and the best possible outcome is its reciprocation in acknowledgement. “This is real,” we want to hear — or in Charli’s words, “these are the things that could make us official.” Kiss my perfect tears!
065. False God — Taylor Swift
This is the most interesting thing on Lover, and I would love to hear the “Look What You Made Me Do” chanteuse explore this sound more on the next album. It’s mature, believably sexy, and prominently features a saxophone. The notion of sex as conspiracy like religion is some excellent poetry. This is the highest entry from Taylor. Bye, girl. Happy new year! Hey google play “New Year’s Day,” the only great song on Reputation.
064. Hallelujah — Haim
“Hallelujah” is the first of three entries from the Haim sisters on my year-end list. All the singles they released this year rocked my world, and they deserve a parent album. Will the girls give me one? Perhaps we’ll find out in 2020. Anyways, their 2019 output is better than all of last album Something to Tell You combined. “Hallelujah” recalls Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” in its plaintive, loving repose. And I hold the Haim sisters in much the same.
063. British Bombs — Declan McKenna
“Kid, your country’s been at war since birth, now.” Christ.
062. Orphans — Coldplay
First of two entries from the biggest band on earth’s excellent new album Everyday Life is them perfecting the Coldplay song template.
061. Neon Moon — Brooks & Dunn and Kacey Musgraves
Kacey, use this synth country template for the next album. Thank you!
060. Flying on My Own — Celine Dion
This is Celine’s best song since “Taking Chances,” please, and it’s a total poppers o’clock banger.
059. needy — Ariana Grande
Ariana was born a day after me, the very same year. So, this song gets me on an astrological level, which is to say, a deeply and essentially human level!!! To hear her own her vulnerability and repurpose the pejorative “needy” as a prize is a chief triumph of her artistic voice on her excellent fifth album thank u, next.
058. Dancing with a Stranger — Sam Smith and Normani
Best mainstream pop star duet in ages!! “Señorita” can rot in hell when this slinky bop is out here strutting the absolute best from Sam Smith and Normani, two pop stars who could and should make 2020 total career high-water marks. For our sake, if it sounds half as good as this song, I pray they do.
057. Wasted Youth — Jenny Lewis
The best track off Jenny’s excellent latest album. What a woman; what a career!
056. Mine Right Now — Sigrid
Pronounced SEA-Grid, you GAYS! This song has a big “HEY” moment in the chorus and is about one night stands or other sexual/romantic ephemera, and so we have to stan.
055. Caroline Shut Up — Caroline Polachek
Self-flagellating anthem! “Sometimes I wonder if I love you too much, then I tell myself Caroline Shut Up.” Literally give her the Nobel Prize in Literature for this self-own that ultimately owns us all as well for feeling the exact same way. We all do. We all do!
054. modern anxiety — Josef Salvat
Sexy bisexual man Josef Salvat is finally returning to music to follow up his gorgeous 2016 debut Night Swim. Apparently, he took the three years off to fall in and out of love, which would certainly provide one with material with which to create. That is why I do another show every three months. Anyways, of his time away, he wrote in a newsletter to fans, “Every time [I fall in love] I feel like another area is revealed on the map, the kingdom’s getting bigger. I used to think that once the kingdom is all revealed I will have properly fallen in love, like, for real. But now I’m starting to realize that maybe there is no end to the kingdom, ever. There is always new space to be revealed in the Kingdom of Luurve.” (His spelling, promise.) I buy that big time, omg, it hurts. Michael, shut up! This song is about all the nervies one gets navigating the Kingdom of Luurve, and it bops.
053. Bad as the Boys — Tove Lo & Alma
Tove Lo is the fucking best. First of four or five entries, we’ll see. This is a sapphic anthem with fellow Swede Alma. Are these words I’m typing?
052. I Remember — Betty Who
Betty was a disappointing album, but according to Spotify, I listened to this song A LOT, so take from that what you will. (I’m gay.)
051. Thinkin Bout You — Ciara
Ciara remains the most underrated pop star of this whole ass millennium, okay!? This is Ciara goes “Teenage Dream,” and GOD IT’S GOOD. Have you every enjoyed the summertime? This song pairs very well with summertime.
050. Hungry Child — Hot Chip
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!! I’m gonna be totally honest with you, I have no idea what the fuck this song is about and I don’t care. Hot Chip are titans of indie dance and this lead single from their new album makes me want to imagine taking drugs I’d never touch because I am Too Sensitive and Hype As I Am. And that, kids, is why RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!!
049. Body Funk — Purple Disco Machine
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!! SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!! Omg, my partner Brian (I mentioned him already but I don’t want to assume you know my life) calls this my gay calculator dance song, and I hate him for it, but like he spilled!! Did he spill or what!! I don’t say that in real life, I promise. I am assuming a guise for the sake of pithiness here. Anyways, Purple Disco Machine made like my favorite dance song ever last year (“Dished (Male Stripper)”) and followed it up with this banger this year. Girls, the FULL ON DISCO REVIVAL IS COMING IN THE 2020s and I WARNED YOU.
048. 1, 2, 3 dayz up — Kim Petras & SOPHIE
This song is fucking insane!! Woo ah! I’m gay! Worms in my brain! Kim is problematic! I’ve never done poppers!
047. Started Out — Georgia
I think this counts as a slightly more mellow RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!! We dancing!! This song reminds me of someone I know doing a very silly dance to the synth line of this song, and it makes me smile. Their identity, however, is My Actor’s Secret, and I cannot reveal it or my work would suffer. What I can tell you, however, is that they are also gay. Gay gay gay!
046. Thing for You — David Guetta and Martin Solveig
Fuck omg so many of these in a row RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!! I love this song despite it being by David Guetta (shoutout to “Titanium”) because it is like sweet tender melancholy crush love song EDM DANCE BANGER floor filler IBIZA SUN BEACH tan PARTY TUNE!! Honey, honey, honey, these are a few of my favorite things. This write-up is getting less lucid as we scale these lofty heights!! Hang on tight!!
045. Stay (Don’t Go Away) — David Guetta and Raye
Michael, did you get lazy with the ranking? Two David Guetta songs in a row in a STRING of RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND tracks?! Omg! Maybe I did, I don’t know. Listen to this COLOSSAL DANCE SONG. Someone PLEASE beam my neutrons and my protons to a universe wherein this is a ten-week number one on the (alien) Billboard Hot 100! I want to literally snap my neck to thing song. Kill me, daddy David! Can we FINALLY MAKE RAYE A STAR?! FUCKING FUCK!
044. Everyone is a Bad Friend — Sir Babygirl
Kelsie Hogue is one of my best friends and also Sir Babygirl. He released one of the best albums of 2019, Crush on Me, and this is the first of three entries from the album to make my list. I love him so much and this year was full of deeply magical personal memories we made together. I wrote the press bio for the album and its fall deluxe re-release. I danced backup for his headline Pride month gig at Elsewhere in Bushwick. I guest DJ’d/danced at his Boston tour stop. I love him and his excellent pop music, which I told him once was “exactly the kind of music we want to hear in the world.” This track is sort-of a two parter that reminds me of Ariana Grande’s “Knew Better/Forever Boy” but is better for mounting to total cathartic release around feeling like we’re all fucking this whole thing up for each other. (Also, when we danced to it at his gig, it had some killer choreography by Allison Morris a.k.a. DJ Tater.)
043. Now That I Found You — Carly Rae Jepsen
Spotify says this was my most listened to track of the year, but I’m a data skeptic and a narrative anarchist so here it is at #43. I wanted to fall in love with the lead single off Dedicated so badly I hammered it upon its release. I did fall in love with it, and it does hold up, but it is the first and lowest entry from its parent album on this list — there are three more. This song matures the sentiment of E•mo•tion lead single “I Really Like You” to slightly less effervescent, if more satisfyingly complex results. She leaves space on this one for all the lingering sadness one feels when falling in love again.
042. boyfriend — Ariana Grande and Social House
I cannot believe I like this “thank u, next” remake that features total hangers-on as much as I do, but here we are. The production is sublime, and Ariana has never sounded more assured.
041. Slide Away — Miley Cyrus
Miley does “Bittersweet Symphony,” and it’s absolutely stunning. This is a perfect showcase of her vocal and lyrical ability, and yet, it may go without a parent album because the streaming age is the wild wild west! Now, I love party Miley, but the girl is Dolly’s granddaughter and it shows in how much pathos she’s able to conjure in performance on her mystical pop epics. That, married with the totally of-the-moment production, makes for a would-be classic that unfortunately slid away from ubiquity.
040. Champion of the World — Coldplay
Oh, man, I love this song. It sounds like childhood dreams manifesting later in life, and yeah, that’s a little funny coming from the ex-husband of Gwyneth Paltrow, but it’s also a triumph for wide eyed optimism and sensitivity. And I’m a sucker for that. Which is why I’m a Coldplay fan and have been for a LONG time now. They keep finding new ways to reinvent their very serviceable wheel, new vehicles to advance with it, and I’m very grateful to ride through life with them.
039. Star Maps — Aly & AJ
Yes, THAT Aly & AJ are out here besting “Potential Breakup Song” in their second active decade as pop icons!! Listen to this song about cosmically felt romance and cry with me about everything!!
038. Late Night Feelings — Mark Ronson and Lykke Li
Speaking about crying about everything, here is Mark Ronson’s thesis statement for his gorgeous divorce album of the same name. Naturally, you’ve got pop’s depression ghost Lykke Li on the vocal. You read these words, you think, okay let me just break a bottle of dealcoholized red wine over my head right now, but STOP! STOP!!!!! Listen. It’s actually a fucking jam. And that’s the point. Maybe jams can help us out of our own jams. Right! Damn, I’m good.
037. Goes Without Saying — Brendan Maclean
Brendan!! Brendan, if you read this, congratulations. I love this song so much, and I am so grateful for its gorgeous gay melancholy the perfectly love-hungover vocal you’ve given here. “Goes Without Saying” is, to these ears, about the well of beautiful, sad, hopeful quiet that connects louder, clearer, more electric transmissions between lovers. That quiet is each of our own, and it is often in that quiet that we grow and change and build the relationship that will ultimately live or die; it’s the precarious stuff of a life lived with a full heart, and Brendan manages to capture the tentative limbo between an inevitable surrender to love and its perhaps even more certain ephemera. Brendan, thank you for the company in these quiet moments.
036. Everybody Wants to Fuck Me — Alaska Thunderfuck
“I can’t believe ‘Everybody Wants to Fuck Me’ is at #36 on your fucking list.” — my partner Brian, foaming at the mouth.
035. Carry On — Kygo and Rita Ora
Yes, kings, this is the theme song from Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, and yes, kings, it fucking knocks. And what about it? I cannot believe I am going to say the following — not because it is wrong or unlikely but because it is stupid that I know it. Kygo had a really great year! Between this positively lovely slice of warm tropical dance and his massive hit rework of a posthumous Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love” vocal (what is this sentence), he really like… idk, did the damn thing for a generic DJ-producer in EDM following the slow deflation of that bubble. I couldn’t name you another Kygo song from another year, but I can name you these two from 2019. Congratulations, Kygo! You captured my attention! I attribute this to the women on the aforementioned tracks, and since we’re here for this Detective Pikachu song, we will talk about Rita Ora. I love Rita Ora. I unironically stan Rita Ora, and I wish her all the success this world has to offer in 2020 and beyond. She is a VERY hard working lady and she is INCREDIBLY GOOD at being a pop star; see all the singles from her 2018 album Phoenix and her other 2019 hit, a Test collaboration called “Ritual.” Rita Ora, to me, is sort of like an English Jennifer Lopez in that she is a massively under-appreciated multi-hyphenate whose charisma and warm tone elevate a more basic dance track. Did you know that Rita acts? Hosts? Dances? Designs clothing? She does it all, girls — and WELL. And yet?! On these American shores, she goes underrated or made the butt of a baseless joke. GO STREAM “THIS IS RITA ORA” on SPOTIFY and call me. I will give you my phone number if you do not have it and we will see this through. You will know the bangers and the bops; you will know the truth. You will see The Light that is Rita Ora and you will stan a bit.
034. Glad He’s Gone — Tove Lo
Sexy!!!!!!!! Tove Lo! So Sexy!!! Put some respect on this sexy witch bitch, okay??? This song, with its earworm chorus and sublimely sweet and organic sound, should’ve been Tove’s biggest hit since 2014’s “Talking Body!” What happened? Maybe Top 40 radio did not want to play a song in which Tove Lo asks a cartoon voice if she went “down on his birthday” or if she “let him leave a necklace!” I don’t know! Chin stroking thinking emoji… Honestly, though, like… who the fuck else could pull off this shit and render it up with pathos? NO ONE. Okay!? She also calls an ex boyfriend “a bitch with some expectations,” which is supreme. Tove is the supreme. “Only one dick, that’s a bummer,” she sings on this song, and we’re all like like girl!!!!!!!!!!! Tea, wig, etc. :P
033. This Life — Vampire Weekend
Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” but make it anxious and full of pop culture references. Ivy league pop with a heart — that’s VW beating themselves at their own game.
032. ghostin — Ariana Grande
Ariana’s best-written song is an absolutely gutting exploration of mourning through love that is so raw and vulnerable it couldn’t possibly exist on the same album as “7 Rings.” And yet…
031. Sweet Spot — Kim Petras
Kim does Kylie circa 2001 (so like… french disco), see also #13.
030. Really Don’t Like You — Tove Lo and Kylie Minogue
What the fuck in all that is good and gay!? Could this be… a real collaboration between sexy sexy pop demon Tove Lo and pixie pop goddess Kylie Minogue?! It’s not a fake YouTube upload made by some Brazilian twink!???? And it’s GOOD!?????
029. High Heels — Melanie C feat. Sink the Pink
Omg okay so get this, I spent like two weeks in New York City for #WorldPride #Pride50 #Stonewall50 #instagay #gayNYC #thevessel, right, and I had VIP passes to something called ‘closing ceremony,’ that I took my beloved #24 (spoilers!) to with me, and midway through fucking Bill deBlasio came out and completely derailed what was otherwise a QT benefit concert (kind of vibe) to talk about his completely DOA presidential campaign. Killed my vibe, my buzz, my #pride. Honest! Hand to God. AND THEN… like, I knew what the event was, I knew the lineup, and it did not have this artist on it. So imagine my fucking surprise, imagine the full body shock and awe that nearly knocked me into my companion (#24) when Margaret Cho (our host for the evening, keep up) announced “please welcome to the stage, to spice up your life and mine, Sporty Spice Melanie C!” Reader, I experienced a hard reset — a factory reset, to primordial f*ggot conditions, 2 became 1, and I fully transformed into four year old Michael John attending the final screening of Spice World on release day because I had just been discharged from the hospital after a bout with bronchitis — all to say, I could not BREATHE. Melanie C! She came out here, into the middle of Times Square Center of the Universe City that Ne’er Sleeps, Ne’er Do Well New York Fucking City and began singing like “Too Much” and “Say You’ll Be There.” And wait… WAIT!!! She was backed by UNITED KINGDOM DRAG ROYALTY dressed as the other Spice Girls with whom she had just finished their sold-out anniversary stadium tour! THE POWER. And then she performed this brand new f*g bop about self empowerment via shoes and my head fell off!! Then, she didn’t release it for like five months, but when she did… when it appeared on streaming services… I screwed my head in real good and haven’t stopped playing it since.
028. No Drug Like Me — Carly Rae Jepsen
“You ain’t tried no drug like me!” OKAY????? Don’t you forget it! Carly’s second of four very high entries here, girls!!!
027. Tomorrow — Mika
This is Mika’s “Teenage Dream,” something I didn’t know I needed, but I absolutely need — a dreamy, wide-eyed GAY, mid-tempo, GAY summertime song about falling carelessly, breathlessly, head over heels in GAY love.
026. Say It — Maggie Rogers
This is the best song on Maggie’s full length debut Heard it in a Past Life and promises so much from This Young Sorceress. For all the mysticism she seems eager to conjure in her songwriting, that which proves most powerful it — you guessed it — love. This song paired extraordinarily well with Robyn’s “Send to Robin Immediately” for me throughout this year for their being two carpé diem anthems about speaking on your feelings and making yourself known, however much it might scare or hurt when all is said and done. We can try to resist the inertia of love, but we’re all ultimately going to fall this way and that into place. It’s awful and random feeling, and I found it sweetly comforting to hear Maggie pretend to put up a fight and resist love here. We all know the sentiment — “fuck… I’m not supposed to be in love, no, no, no… I can’t… I can’t… I must.” To hear it crystallized so gorgeously in Maggie’s shimmering folk pop is a sublime treat.
025. Don’t Feel Like Crying — Sigrid
Pronounced: SEA-GRID! I saw you on the Sea Grid, gays. Anyways, this is Sigrid doing her best “Call Me Maybe,” but on the other side of the relationship. She’s cleaning up the pieces after the inevitable breakup and she’s resolutely going to dance it off instead of weeping! We have no choice but to stan because when we stan we keep ourselves from weeping, too. We support one another. That’s called community, babes. Here is Sigrid’s highest entry on my list. The phrasing of the word, “no,” into the sound, “ooh,” on the chorus is fucking insane. It is also an earworm. I love that bizarre and totally nonsensical middle ground, and that’s why I love Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally” like a freak. Please support me. It’s called community, babes!!
024. Drawn — Nicky B
Nothing’s right, I’m drawn. — Natalie Imbruglia.
Jk. These excellent songs have nothing to do with one another. NICKY!!! Hi baby!! I’m so proud of you. Nicky is my ex boyfriend and beloved friend. We are so evolved, you guys. Anyways, I also wrote the press materials for this single when Nicky released it this past spring, and it’s only gotten better since. For the record, everything on this is all Nicky. He taught himself to produce and record. He engineered his vocals and plays every instrument and synth part. He wrote these beautiful poetic words. I am a PROUD PARENT OF AN HONORS STUDENT—er, ex boyfriend, ok!! Following the sugar rush of his 2018 single “Take it to Love,” “Drawn” bursts with majestic intimacy, constructing a wall of iridescent synths around an agile melody that invites a broken heart to fight through all its longing and suffering towards reckoning. Setting chamber pop intimacy to a scandipop sound, it vividly expresses what I think is exactly the sound Nicky’s always been working towards in his production, all the while graciously offering a gathering space through his compassionate songcraft.
023. Mirage (Don’t Stop) — Jessie Ware
Jessie Ware and Dua Lipa are leading a disco revival in the UK and I am fucking shaking, girlies!! “Don’t stop moving together!” could be the thesis statement for all these songs!!
022. Millonaria — Rosalía
3/4 for the icon Rosalía! “FUCKING MONEY MAN!” A scathing indictment of capitalism!
021. All Day and Night — Jax Jones, Martin Solveig, and Madison Bier
RAVING IS A STATE OF MIND!! It’s literally the year 2000 on this absolutely killer eurodance cut from two titans of dance production and the very good Madison Bier on the vocal. It is a very exciting thing to hear these turn-of-the-century futuristic techno sounds find greater realization in more advanced instrumentation than was possible when they were in vogue, and I certainly hope we hear more Darude “Sandstorm” knockoffs for the sake of raving in the decade to come.
020. Now I’m In It — Haim
Omg, HAIM!!!! Put out an album!! There are THREE of you and only one of some of the other ‘acts’ on this list, who have released big and boring albums this year; you should be able to cobble one together!! This and the California sisters’ other two 2019 singles are already a heady start to such an effort. Throw in a Haim-y remake of their Charli XCX feature, “Warm,” and you’re 45% of your way to what passes for a full-length album in 2019! I’ll stop complaining, I guess, but SHEESH. This song murders my heart while giving sweet tender kisses to my ears in all its femme Savage Garden glory. It is about climbing out from under depression, which I get, but — get this — it reads as a love song. And… like… BIG SAME. Ugh, GENIUS!! Girls!!! You really did it this time!!!! Get this conceit: Danielle Haim is singing to herself about how her depression is standing in the way of her self-love. O! I am slain. The music video also features some extraordinarily Haim-y behavior like the very muppet-y Este pulling faces and running around like Deedee from Dexter’s Laboratory. Pop music perfection! The whole package! I am still crying about the hinge between love and depression. Goodnight.
019. Jacques — Tove Lo and Jax Jones
Tove!! Sexy time with Tove and I guess my favorite DJ/Producer of the Year? Idk, I also spoke highly of Mark Ronson earlier, but Jax Jones keeps FEEDING ME these bops and he is very cute, too!! He is not gay, but Tove is, so this balances out. “Je m’appelle Tove/get this show on the road,” is… the rhyme of the year. Sorry, songwriters! Title SEIZED by Tove and Jax, who sound like comic book villains when referred to by their first names only. Again, this song is fucking hot and I have done many a strut to it in the sunshine.
018. Ice Cream — Mika
I miss Scissor Sisters. In the meantime, this will do. Also, may this serve as a reminder that Mika exists, he is an excellent pop songwriter chock full of bops, and I am a stan. He is huge in Italy! He hosts a talk show there called Mika’s House or something!
017. Juice — Lizzo
In January, we thought Lizzo would finally conquer the world with this instant song of the summer classic. Instead, “Truth Hurts” was featured in a Gina Rodriguez Netflix movie, and the rest is lit’ral history, luv. Welcome to the future. Things are weird!! At least Lizzo’s famous.
016. Next Level Charli — Charli XCX
This song is 25 seconds of massive 80s Casio synths drenched in reverb followed by a two-minute long shout chorus about getting lost in the dance as a means by which to evolve oneself, and it is my favorite song. The first time I heard it, I wept in the shower. I nearly drowned myself, and I have a very trickly shower, so… like… yeah. :’) I am so gay! Here’s the thing about Little Miss Charlotte Aitchison. She’s the closest thing we’ll get to a pop star actually embodying Futurist ideals beyond mere aesthetics, and yes suddenly I am talking about modern art movements in contemporary pop music, so buckle UP. I am Next Level Michael John!! Futurist Charli XCX keeps moving both in her career and as a character in her own songs. She keeps the tempos up in stories of fast cars and fast love, and she keeps unleashing torrents of new music and features. She runs her career at 120 beats per minute — at least — because she is gripped by a relentless terror that if she stops to catch her breath, feelings will catch her. To move is her survival instinct, and she exploits it to cathartic release all over her excellent eponymous album. As a freelancer and a young creative, as a wide-eyed romantic and recent sober person, I can relate. Evolution and further exploration feels so often like the imperative, so to hear this album-opener mission statement from Charli that owns her Futurist intent with big-hearted, lighters-aloft anthemic earnestness feels like her standing in her terrified power more than she ever has before.
015. Julien — Carly Rae Jepsen
This is exactly what I wanted E•mo•tion follow-up Dedicated to be — a live-wire expedition to take disco sounds and grooves through the indie pop filter into the new millennium. To have this sheer triumph of mission realized as an ode to a forever-held lost love is perhaps the best Carly could have done for me this time around. It’s a love letter, refracted in a disco ball, to all the boys we wished we danced with on love-drunk nights out. The wordless chorus leaves us space to twirl and prance around the dance floor.
014. You Had Your Soul With You — The National
“Soul” was the lead single off The National’s eighth studio album. That’s eight full long players full of wine-soaked confessions, cerebral Dessner brothers arrangements, and beardy ennui. Somehow, they’re all great albums full of deeply human song-stories, but the greater feat to these ears is just how great eight LP I Am Easy to Find is — and how the band managed to crack itself open to let the light in. The band collaborated with 20th Century Women filmmaker Mike Mills to create companion pieces — the album and a film of the same name, respectively — inspired but not beholden to one another. In doing so, frontman Matt Berninger managed to untether his band and their songs from the myopic monolith of his world-weary perspective. To highlight this, the band enlisted performances and contributions from other singer-songwriters including Lisa Hannigan, Sharon Van Etten, Mina Tindle, Gail Ann Dorsey, Kate Stables, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. National albums are usually bracingly claustrophobic in their plundering the depths of Berninger’s fractured psyche, but in breaking open the tight code of the band, I Am Easy to Find refracts new light and color through a familiar and beloved prism. “You Had Your Soul With You” manages, then, to lead the pack as the brightest, most earnest love song the band has made, complete with sun-splashed musical flourishes that conjure images of romance in montage at a breakneck pace. The lyrics were written wholly by Berninger’s wife Carin Besser, the subject of most of Berninger’s work. To hear the entire assembled collective — the band, studio musicians, guest vocalists — lend such supple voice to her story sounds like indelible reciprocity. It manages hopefulness in even its deepest expression of futility. It’s lovely.
013. Do Me — Kim Petras
This might be Kim’s best song on a technicality, though earlier highlights “Hillside Boys,” “I Don’t Want It At All,” and “Heart to Break” have hard-earned sentimentality points for their soundtracking every gay bar and pride event for the last two summers. This highlight from her sophomore effort Clarity is a sky-high, big-hair 80s sex power ballad that she carries off like a pop star who may be able to cast off her problematic origin story after all. Cheers to Kim’s rising star, but in appreciating her obvious talent and important prominence as a trans artist, I wish for her the strength and poise in the pop world to take a responsible stand for something in which she and her burgeoning legion of fans can believe.
012. Pink Lite — Sir Babygirl
This song has some of the most lucid, terrifying, vulnerable writing on Sir Babygirl’s Crush on Me. It has long been a profoundly important song to me for its being somewhat wrought from some formative shared experiences I had with Kelsie as she worked through making the album and stepping into the music industry and I grappled with my intentions as an early career theatre-maker, as we both asked ourselves if we dared to cut loose from our adolescence and fight for what we believe in — whether that be love, pop music, theatre, or a frenzied and full combination of all three. I cherish this song, and its springy, spacey production. To hear Kelsie really tear into its stunning melody line and lyrical storytelling, check out the acoustic version released to promote the album’s deluxe re-release.
011. Harmony Hall — Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend will ultimately emerge as my favorite traditional band of the decade, soundtracking my coming-of-age and forever reminding me of my North Jersey childhood and New York City roots. However, on Father of the Bride, Ezra Koenig and company (sans multi-hyphenate power player Rostam Batmanglij) explore other worlds of sound — southern California singer-songwriter yarns, jam band American sprawl, and Appalachian country western duet. It all works for its grounding in Koenig’s ever-maturing and increasingly revealing lyricism. “Harmony Hall” repurposes a hook from my favorite Vampire Weekend album, Modern Vampires of the City, for its glorious and weary chorus: “I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die,” thus putting the band in conversation with its history and Koenig in conversation with our shared global sense of anxiety and dread. We can’t go on. We must go on.
010. Summer Girl — Haim
Here is the final, highest charting Haim song of the year, and the first of the three singles the sisters released in 2019. “Summer Girl” is an indelible, Lou Reed-indebted slice of dusky summer evening jazz rock about Danielle’s experience walking her partner (and band producer) Ariel Rechtshaid through a battle with testicular cancer. Though it keeps its lyrical terms small, the space afforded by its production magnifies the sentiments to a divine and mystic level. She implores her partner, with such ease and assuredness, “these are the earthquake drills that we ran… walk beside me, not behind me.” She insists, with almost alien grace, everything will be okay if we just keep going with one another. The song’s magic and its efficacy is in its simplicity and sparseness — it knows exactly what it needs to be a divinely feminine salve for all our human brokenness, and it does that with style and a wry, loving smile.
009. Adore You — Jessie Ware
I once dreamt of making a novelty t-shirt that said “Jessie Ware owns this bussy,” but no one would get it and also it is gross. She does, though. Speaking of the divine feminine, let’s talk about Jessie Ware’s 2019. She completed her upcoming album, which will feature this song and fellow chart-maker “Mirage (Don’t Stop).” She produced another season of her award winning cooking podcast with her mother. She also became a mother for the second time. Mama!!!!! HOW!??? The only lead I have towards answering that question is in the music she generously gifts us, best exemplified by this transcendent disco number: love is the answer. Sensuality — and dare we name it — sexuality is our energy source. The more we can lean into loving one another, the more we can express it freely, the more we can be in our time here on this planet. I had a profound experience with this song late this summer, while dancing to it on repeat in a church sanctuary for an hour. I don’t know if it’s worth my explaining that, so I won’t. ;) Anyways, with every little round I let my hips swivel, I sunk deeper into Jessie’s grooves and felt myself find strength and healing in the joy of unconditional love — an extraordinary physical reminder for a Cancerian lover like me. It soundtracked some feats of love I attempted this year. It empowered me when they succeeded and comforted me when they fumbled. It made me feel beautiful and courageous. Give it a listen and give yourself a shimmy. I wish the same for us all.
008. Aute Cuture — Rosalía
The final of Rosalía’s four entries on my list, “Aute Cuture” and its instantly iconic music video was the moment I knew she was poised and ready to take the title of world’s best pop star. She just gets it, and she gets what works about pop at the dawn of a new decade. While Rosalía has her bejeweled-nail grip on my neck, she is also manipulating her image (a perfect balance of the regal, grotesque, and femme), her sound (streaming service-friendly song lengths and cross-genre sounds), and her branding (dropping signature sound bites like “madre mia, Rosalía, bajale” and “tra” as many rappers have done) to build a sonic empire around her character. “Aute Cuture” is a perfect crystallization of her rising star for its dressing up a standard-issue fuck-you anthem as an ownership of everything that makes her a Queen. I cannot wait to see how she ruins me and the game next.
007. Look at Me Now — Caroline Polachek
Oh, well what do we have here? A perfect ballad from my favorite album of the year? Looks like it! “Look at Me Now” mines the crystal clear self-reflection that makes Caroline’s solo debut album so spellbinding, rendering self-appraisal in little anecdotes of lovesickness like, “Now my friends all tell me,/‘Girl, you’re getting skinny…/Have you not been sleeping?’/How could I be?” Through these painfully honest moments, she demands to be seen for exactly who she is after all the mess and misery she’s made for herself. “I can’t run anymore…/Gotta stay right here, and face the storm./If you can look at me now,/I haven’t changed… I’m still the same.” It’s not defensiveness, and it’s not impenetrable. It’s quite the contrary. She’s asking for permission to be responsible for all the good and bad choices she’s made. She’s asserting that it all exists in her, and it may very well be that which makes her unique and beautiful and strong. I suppose this posits the song as some kind of “flaws and all” anthem, but her lyrical specificity and forlorn, steady vocal performance prevent it from any kind of hardened resolution. “Look at Me Now” is too soft and honest to be anything but a request to be seen, as simple and difficult as that may be.
I think I’m approaching my Saturn’s return, midway through my 26th year. I’m thinking a lot about intentionality and the life I want to live, the adventures I want to have, the people and places and art I want to love and create. I have so many incredible friends and family in my life. All I think I ask through my many transformations is to be seen for all the potential I possess. As I do, I find so much solace in the space Caroline creates for herself to thrive in this song.
006. Don’t Start Now — Dua Lipa
Here’s the deal. This was nearly number one this year, but I’m scared to put it in the pole position because it came out so late in the year and I haven’t had the chance to live enough life with it. But MARK MY WORDS, GIRLS: Dua Lipa is coming for blood in 2020. She has put her foot firmly on my neck with this, the lead single off her upcoming sophomore album Future Nostalgia, and she is going to crush my windpipe with her full disco revival package in either Quarter 1 or Quarter 2 of this first year of the new decade. I am speaking that into existence. I am planting that seed. We will harvest it together on the dancefloor, twirling to this absolute smash that is so very good that American radio is bothering to play a nu-nu-disco song amidst the trap grunge moment popular music seems to be having. The chorus? Undeniable. The sentiment? Timeless! The popstar narrative? PRIME. I saw Miss Duanne do a live interview/acoustic set for The New Yorker in October where she debuted her new hair and threatened this new disco era, saying like “oi, I’m gonna learn how to dance, hehe;)” and this song is PROOF that a pop star in the year of our Lorde 2020 is about to keep her fucking word! Can you believe?! YES, SHUT UP AND DANCE.
005. Never Really Over — Katy Perry
Katy Perry began the decade pegging us all — her sophomore album Teenage Dream tying the record for most consecutive number one singles off an album with Michael Jackson’s Bad. After years of diminishing returns that reached a nadir on 2017’s turgid, fake-woke Witness, she stepped firmly back into the power pop that made her with “Never Really Over,” a song inspired by and interpolating Norwegian rising star Dagny’s excellent 2017 anthem “Love You Like That.” Okay, so yeah… she effectively remade an existing song in her image, complete with writing credit for Dagny. And there would absolutely be something sinister about The Pop Machine regurgitating the excellent work of indie singer-songwriter from another market for one of the global pop market’s best known commodities… if it weren’t so damn good. “Never Really Over” is not a lesser facsimile to the Dagny song. In fact, it exists brilliantly alongside “Love You Like That” by using that song’s template as a fertile new garden in which one of pop music’s biggest voices and personalities can root the next phase of her career. After years genre-hopping for sake of continued chart relevance that wore thin fast, “Never Really Over” promises Katy Perry finding comfort excelling at the kind of power-pop that made her a superstar. It arrived at the onset of Pride season this past year and soundtracked a sunny and euphoric summer, helping me see pop music gold in even the hardest heartbreaks.
004. Medellín — Madonna and Maluma
Speaking of Pride season anthems, Madonna’s Madame X lead single “Medellín” was an early entry onto the scene to launch the Queen of Pop’s 14th studio album and her stint as ‘WorldPride ambassador’ to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. It is a languid, humid, funky slice of futuristic reggaeton pop that sees Madonna duet with (sexy, so sexy) Colombian artist Maluma. For all its disparate pieces — career reference points and clichéd lyrical tropes, poetic license with language and performance styles — it has no right being as good as it is. And yet, all the pieces add up and the sum is so much greater than its many parts: “Medellín” is a transportive five-minute miniature pop opus that takes the listener through Madonna’s career, to the present moment, and joyously ushers in her Queenly vision of pop music’s future: cross-cultural and audacious, free, sensual, and weird. It is her arguably her strongest lead single since “Hung Up” and continued to reveal to me tremendous replay value for all the joy that lies in each of its little quirks and sonic flourishes and the clear pleasure it was to make. As a pop music obsessive, raised by my mother to worship at Madonna’s altar, it is so totally exhilarating to find her continue to command her artistry and reinvent herself so essentially this far into her storied career. Long may she reign!
003. Cheerleader — Sir Babygirl
This song holds in it some of my most treasured memories this year and is the highest charting track from my dear friend Kelsie’s debut album as Sir Babygirl. I mentioned earlier that I danced backup for her throughout the year, and this song was one I had long dreamt of realizing alongside her. It’s a pitch perfect subversion of the bratty bubblegum pop-rock high school outcast anthem; turning old clichés on their side to let in everyone and anyone who ever felt shuttered from high school and the simple favors of adolescence. In doing so, “Cheerleader” is the perfect queer coming-of-age anthem for it cinematically soundtracking the high drama of the second adolescence one faces after coming out. It invites us to do over the painful secrets we kept of our identities and the sacrifices we made to sublimate our passions. It reclaims power for the queer experience — both in its mining of hand-clap and stop 60s girl group tropes or 90s dude grunge bands, and its toppling of false idols we were taught to empower as we grew up on the outside. “Our dirty little secret in the bathroom stall/everybody wants to watch the cheerleader fall…” Kelsie insists, sealing a pact with us who are just like her, before the song mounts to a cathartic rush of cheerleader chants imploring us to “be aggressive,” fight through the pain and trauma we’ve sustained in the margins, and claim the power we’ve long been denied. And it’s just fucking fun.
When I danced for Kelsie at her headline gig at Bushwick’s Elsewhere, this was my favorite choreography to hit. I have the most distinct and surreal memory of standing onstage in front of a sea of gorgeous, sweat-glistened, happy queers dancing and singing along to my friend’s shiny, new, gae pop. My heart raced in my tight pink leotard as me and my ex boyfriend (and list honoree Nicky B, #24) wound up to hit the chorus moves. I took a deep breath and a smile spread across my face as we dove into our beloved and well-worn routine. Our crowd roared as Kelsie owned her hard-earned headline stage. Behind the stage, the skyline of Manhattan — my favorite city, my hometown past and my passion’s future — shimmered. Before us, and just beyond the crowd in the distance, fireworks went off and glittered the sky with confetti. It felt like a dream. Maybe it was. But it was finally ours, and I’m so glad we shared it.
002. Too Much — Carly Rae Jepsen
Remember Lorde’s perfect Melodrama song “Liability?” This is that song, but halfheartedly dancing through steady tears after being dragged out for the night. It is isolation in a crowded room, knowing that no one or thing could possibly house all your love and care, all your work and attention, all your joy and sorrow. It is certainty that you will have to lay your own head to rest at the end of the day, and you have to attempt sleep with the choices you’ve made. It is certainty that all your best efforts will likely lead to failure and letting yourself do so spectacularly. How else will you learn?
Carly Rae Jepsen has matured an extraordinary career over the past decade by making emotionally intelligent singer-songwriter music in an 80s pop vernacular; us broken gays have found solace in her work and her persona as the Queen of Everything (and Nothing at All). Like Robyn and Lorde, she is a bit of a cypher. But she uses that to make music that communicates her as a sort-of pop music Everywoman — despite flashes of cultural ubiquity and stardom like “Call Me Maybe.” It allows a song like “Too Much,” (or “Dancing on My Own,” and “Liability,” before it) to feel like an authentic slice of life and its never-ending, heartrending terrors. The real triumph of “Too Much” is its self-possession; yes, we may ultimately be alone when all is said and done. Yes, love may never be enough. It may be too much. But regardless, we will know it and pursue it with every breath we take, and we will be all the stronger and more ourselves for it. In doing so, we will know ourselves, and that makes us a little less alone. “Too Much” is the wry self-love that makes it possible to go home after a night out, our heads spinning and hearts aching, and rest.
001. Gone — Charli XCX and Christine & the Queens
“I feel so unstable, fucking hate these people,” is the hook of this duet between forward-thinking femme pop auteurs Charli XCX and Christine & the Queens. It’s a seismic collaboration that feels like it nearly buckles under its own weight, but it’s less because of a clash of personalities and more because of all the humanity they bring the piece and how their crazy potent chemistry combusts in collaboration. “I feel so unstable, fucking hate these people” is the hook, a line that originally rhymed “unstable” with “my label” in an early demo. That’s to say that this song was meant, from its very inception, as a mission statement against anxiety and negative energy, obstacles and self-destruction.
Charli and Chris exist — and thrive — on the fringes of mainstream pop — a seemingly precarious position but one they’ve both respectively fought for. Charli continues to balance opportunities like opening for Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour and writing megahits like Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes’ “Señorita” with playing basement shows in support of mixtapes full of underground collaborators dropping bars and verses over soundscapes like blenders fucking that she releases against her label’s wishes. Meanwhile, Chris scales tastemakers’ playlists and critics year-end lists, stopping the show at any awards show that lets her give audiences a taste of her electrifying live show, all the while confounding the press’ attempts to romanticize or sexualize her, her gender performance, and her work towards diminished artistic control. Their voices, perspectives, and stories combining on “Gone” could make for such noise they cancel each out, but that’s not what happens. They give one another space to vent — simmer, rage, and wail — amidst production so crisp, sparse, and specific in its 80s retro-futurist wall of sound. “Gone” is the sound of two supernova iconoclasts unburdening themselves of such titles and the expectations they carry. What they expose in their respective lyrical turns and startlingly raw vocal performances is all the anguish and joy of making life happen despite an overwhelming feeling of impossibility. When they finally reach the song’s instrumental coda — a fiery dance break in the song’s incredible video — “Gone” releases itself into a euphoric rush that reveals Charli and Chris to be exactly who they are. In all the artifice, there they are, as they intend to be seen. In all the noise, there they are, expressing themselves exactly as they wish to be heard. Whether the masses are listening or not, there they are — making life happen in an undeniable firecracker of an electro-pop anthem that will claim classic status in both their respective catalogues. It’s the indie pop “Telephone” — two shooting stars’ paths intersecting in a glorious explosion of glitter that lights up our world and shows some of us a way forward that we could not see before.
I look up to Charli and Chris, and “Gone” meant so much to me this year, as I squared off with demons personal and professional. Upon publishing this list, I’ll be a day shy of one year of sobriety. I fought moment-to-moment to live a more clear-headed life that pushed me to radical honesty with myself and my loved ones. The process was — and continues to be — one of radical, painful, joyous transformation that I can only hope is turning me into the supernova iconoclast I can be. On that note, I also found myself pushing at my supposed career boundaries to further carve out exactly the kind of creative professional life I wish to live. Through processes that terrified me unlike anything I’d faced before, I began to realize some life-long dreams of mine. “Gone” feels like this sort of transformation put into pop song, so throughout 2019, it was alternately aspirational anthem and uniquely specific salve depending on where in my transformative process it found me. It isn’t the prettiest or simplest song on this list by a long shot, but it is the one that felt most viscerally like my experience walking through this extraordinary pressure cooker of a year for me. I feel so grateful for all the rich rewards it gave me, all the challenges and triumphs it presented me. At the end of this year, I certainly feel so many parts of me are just fucking gone, done, useless and effervesced away. I hope and trust that what remains — what I continue to cultivate and nurture — is the most honest, most radical, most possible person I can be. I am so excited to continue making life happen with all this beautiful music to soundtrack my journey, keep me company, and inspire me forth.
Thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening.
Let’s dance.
Happy new year.
xo
mjc
BONUS: MY TOP 100 SONGS OF THE DECADE
Et voila! Based on my top tens from the past ten years, with some editorial choices thrown in for good measure, here’s a brand new playlist of my favorite songs from the past ten years, ordered from #1-#100 based on their #impact in my big little life. Enjoy!
