#i hop on the elliptical

[angelapleasant]

how i feel waiting for ts2 to load

[swisccfinds]

Flowfit Mod by SimRealist

This mod is great if you really hate the base game equipment and enhances fitness in your sims life!

creator's notes-

Mod Summary

This mod enhances the fitness experience for Sims in the Sims 4. Bringing to life some of the common activities we do in everyday life to get in shape and become healthier.    

Summary of Changes

We added/changed the following:

NEW OBJECTS: Bringing in an Elliptical, Rower, Climber, and a new Treadmill as a first step towards expanding the FlowFit experience

COMING SOON! - FlowFit Cycle

FlowFit Ellipticore 

§1,275

The Ellipticore is the ultimate elliptical machine for anyone looking to get a full-body workout from their home. With its sleek design and advanced technology, the Ellipticore is perfect for those who want to stay fit and healthy without having to go to the gym. 

FlowFit Row 

§2,250

The perfect way to stay fit and feel like you're on a relaxing rowing trip at the same time! This machine is so realistic you'll swear you can hear the sound of water lapping against a boat. But don't worry, there's no chance of getting seasick on this machine - just a great workout and a lot of laughs when your friends ask why you're singing "Row, row, row your boat" at the gym. Plus, with adjustable resistance settings, you can choose to row upstream or downstream depending on your mood. So hop on board, and let's row our way to fitness!

FlowFit Summit  

§3,500

Introducing the Summit Climber, the ultimate workout machine for those who love to climb but hate the cold! With Summit, you can now climb the highest peaks from the comfort of your living room. No more frostbite, no more altitude sickness, just pure, unadulterated climbing fun!

FlowFit Tread  

§3,500

Hop on the latest and greatest that the fitness industry has to offer with the FlowFit Tread! This simple yet advanced fitness equipment will help you reach new heights in your fitness journey. It will help you climb every mountain, I mean hills. It will help you ford every stream or, ya know, rivers...allow you to follow every rainbow. Maybe there's gold on the other side? Till you find your dream of a fit new you! I mean, we can all dream, right?

FAQ

Do I need to activate this mod for it to work?

No, as soon as you load up a save, this mod becomes active in that save. No action is required. 

I have a suggestion for making this mod even more; where do I leave that suggestion?

Please post your suggestions while this mod is in Development in our Discord channel - #patrons-forum (https://discord.gg/x6bFyNT)

Compatible With: 

Patch 10/31/2023 PC: 1.102.190.1030 / Mac: 1.102.190.1230

Conflicts/Issues/Notable Items Observed:

None that hasn't already been noted.

Credits:

thepancake1: SR Animator

vidavic: SR Modeler

Nichole: SR Mod Producer

Thanks to the SR Linguists Team

Please show all your love and support to SimRealist and the credited creators above in the creator's notes!

download

[abibliophobiaa]

Beyond - s.h. x f!reader

Chapter Six: Would I Lie to You, Baby?

special thank you to @myosotisa and @loveshotzz for the beta read and also @myosotisa for helping me with a special scene that takes place in this chapter!!

warnings: minor injury; mentions of alcohol; unwanted advances/flirting/touching - R receiving end; and a whole lot of fluffy modern day!rich!fake-husband!steve x afab!reader. (9.3k words)

masterlist

——

——

 What’s that saying? 

Woman down. 

Abort mission. 

Houston, we have a problem. And boy do you have one. 

The day starts like any other, only because of the rainy weather that has plagued the city since September bled into October, you’ve been forced to take your morning walk indoors. And it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve used the personal gym in your home either. In fact, by now you’ve used it countless times. 

No. Instead, it’s the image that greets you upon entering that is a definitive ‘first time’ for you. Because there’s no forgetting the sight of your husband, bare chested, catching his breath as he rests on a bench. His hair is hidden beneath a baseball cap, a water bottle between his plush lips that manages to spill onto his chest with the intensity he’s chugging it. 

Oh, and his face? He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and Steve Harrington with a growing mustache and beard should be illegal. 

Jail time and a permanent sentence if you have any say in the matter. 

The reason why? 

Riling up his fake wife into a tizzy.  

The optic is…not helping your present situation. The dawning realization that seems intent on reminding you every single day that you’re attracted to your husband. Emotionally, physically—the whole of it. It’s infuriating, daunting and downright terrifying. But he can’t know that—can never know that, because of the deal. 

The deal. The arrangement. The rules. 

But lately, you want to throw them all out and burn that ridiculous contract he had you sign seemingly so long ago now. 

Suddenly, you’re hyper aware of the fact you’re staring, watching as his brows draw high on his forehead. With a swallow, you turn your head away, hating how your damn cheeks start to warm under his scrutiny. 

He’s probably loving it, too. Loving the way you shift on the spot, unsure of what to do beneath his stare, hugging yourself tight. 

Basing it on the smug grin that curls his lips alone, you know he has to be. 

“Figured I’d get in a workout because Charlie is napping,” you explain, stepping further into the room, stopping in front of the endless rows of dumbbells your husband keeps on a rack against the far wall of the room with wall to wall mirrors reflecting your nervous image back at you. “And also because it’s raining, I couldn’t go outside.”

“Uh huh.” He takes a final gulp of his water and places it down onto the floor beside him, about to start more bicep curls when he catches your image in the mirror. “Looking for something?” 

Maybe it’s your inability to figure out what weight dumbbells you should start with. Maybe it’s because you’re already forgetting the layout of the TikTok workout you watched earlier that evening you intended to try. Maybe it’s the fact you know you want to start lifting weights, if only to help with your running and dog walking business (some of those bigger dogs get a little rowdy). Maybe it’s the fact you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. As a result of all of that, your teeth pinch against your bottom lip, skin taut between, meeting his stare in the mirror.  

“I’ll probably just hop on the treadmill. Go for a walk,” you decide, cowering away from his curious stare to rush to the farther corner of the room where the cardio equipment is. 

The present set up has a treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster, and spin bike. More than you’ll ever need, but you’ll never complain because one of the perks now in being married to Steve is that you were able to cancel your own membership and save a little extra cash every month. Hopping on, you tap on the large screen panel to set your leisurely walking pace, pop a pair of headphones in your ears, and drown out the sounds in the room. 

The plan works. 

For all of five minutes. 

Because you’re minding your own business, bobbing along to “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. as you strut across your runway slash treadmill belt, when Steve decides to lift his weights once more. Uses his knees to help prop them up, going right into a set of overhead dumbbell presses. 

And damn it, if the sight of him when you walked in hadn’t sent you into orbit, this certainly does. 

From where you’re standing you can see his back. The constellation of moles you never really paid much attention to, but now want to mark the path of with your fingers. Want to trace them like the stars in the night sky. With every overhead arch, his sinewy back ripples, muscles in his arms straining, veins sparking to life beneath his skin. You can see the lines of his abdomen, the sweat pooling across ridges, clinging to those perfectly sculpted divots. Can see the way his chest jumps with each movement, making your thighs clench. 

Only—one's thighs shouldn’t clench on the treadmill. 

Except yours do. 

And promptly send you crashing onto the belt, skin ripping from your kneecap in one rapid swipe. 

A giant, gaping black hole in the floor would be a good escape right now. That or a meteor falling from the sky, with its target directed at your head. Anything to rid yourself of the mortification of your current dose of reality. 

Steve’s already dropping the dumbbells by the time you fall onto your rear, nearly crashing into the glass window in the process, your trembling hands clutching your scraped up knee. 

It burns. A white hot heat that has your eyes prickling, embarrassment burning like a heated iron in your chest. And to make matters worse, Steve utters out a soft “baby” as he drops down in front of you, and that might as well signify the end of all life function. Because not only have you fallen off a treadmill ogling your increasingly “not-so-fake-husband,” but now he is calling you “baby” on top of it all.  

“Baby, let me see,” you realize he’s saying as you come crashing back to reality, the hazel of his eyes growing darker as he crawls closer on the floor, trying to inspect your knee. With a reluctant sigh, your hands fall away, revealing the freshly torn skin. “That’s a mean looking burn. Come on, let's put something on that.”

“I’m fine right here,” you argue, back pressing against the mirrored wall.

“Why?” 

His brows lift high on his forehead, left hand curling over the unbroken skin of your left knee. You can see he’s wearing a black silicone wedding band today, not his usual wedding ring, and yet you don’t miss that simple gesture. Always wearing that symbol of your union, while your own are presently sitting high enough in a ring holder so Charlie won’t be able to mistake them for very expensive doggy chew toys.  

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.” 

“It’s a little burn, and then you’ll feel better,” he promises, giving your knee a little squeeze. “I’ll be so gentle.” 

“Steve.”

“Honey.”

“Well when you say it like that,” you say, snorting. 

He takes it as joking. Head shaking as you curl your hand around his and allow him to help lift you off the floor, body nearly careening into his at the force of it. But there’s a sincerity behind the joke; the way your heart thumps a little faster every time he utters his affections like that; every time he graces you with a token of his appreciation, or the lingering sweetness of a fond title when no one is around to hear it. Those little moments that are completely yours for the taking, hidden away from those who would watch your marriage under a microscope—those you continue to act in front of to keep up your facade.  

There’s an expectation, though you’re uncertain where it derives from, that he’ll take you to your bathroom, connected to your bedroom. It’s closest to the gym, as it is. But when you pass your doorway and end up in front of his bedroom, drawing the excited gaze of your puppy lazing on Steve’s bed, you find yourself freezing. Pausing in the entryway as you take in his room. Like your living room when you first moved in, it’s minimalistic. Huge, with a california king bed in the middle. But it’s limited in decor. White walls, black furniture and bedding, with a few pictures strewn about his walls. 

This is where he sleeps every night. Where he slips away to when you bid one another goodbye. Briefly, you wonder if he sleeps on his side, or maybe his back. Wonder if he slings a forearm over his eyes or tucks the back of his hand beneath his cheek to draw comfort. Or if he sleeps with the comforter pulled all the way up over his shoulders, or if he prefers them slung low around his hips. All things you shouldn’t be thinking about; especially not now, not as he tugs you along behind him into the adjoining master bathroom, telling Charlie to ‘sit’ in the doorway. 

The puppy drops down onto his haunches, and then lower still, onto his little elbows as Steve gestures for you to hop up onto the sink counter. Palms curl around the edge as he starts to rummage about in his medicine cabinet, finding the topical ointment he’d been looking for. He hadn’t been lying about being gentle. He’s all gentle brushes of a clean warm washcloth damp with water. He then lets the wound air dry as he stands in the cradle of your thighs, looking down at your face.   

“What were you doing for this to happen?” he asks, opening a large band aid to cover the surface of your knee and gliding a small helping of the antibacterial cream there. 

“Just…tripped.” 

“Just a little spill?” 

At your rapid nod, he presses the edge of the band aid down and glides the rest over the surface area of the burn. There’s a bit of a sting, but it settles into a dull ache. His touch lingers. A slow, delicate sweep over the top of your thigh that draws your gaze to his point of contact. It has you wishing nothing more than to lock your ankles around his narrow waist, tug him near, and drag his mouth down against yours. 

Only you don’t. 

Because they’re all fantasies. All fantasies struck up by close proximity to the man. A normal reaction after living with a man like Steve and playing house for four months now. 

Right…?

“You didn’t happen to be distracted or anything?” your husband queries, giving you another one of those swipes of his thumb over your bare thigh. 

Dangerous. 

He’s verging on dangerous territory. 

“My music was pretty loud.” 

He barks out a laugh. “Was it?” 

“Uh huh.” Another swipe. Is it getting hot in this damn bathroom? Must be an October heat wave. “What’s the damage, Dr. Harrington? Will I make it?”

“Might lose the knee,” he says gravely, bowing his head in faux sympathy.

A little gasp spills from your lips, hand curling over your heart dramatically. “The knee?” 

Charlie jumps to attention at that, rushing over to bump Steve’s thigh with the tip of his nose. You lean down a bit to pet him, and holy mother of god he’s still half naked, you remind yourself as your face comes a little too close to Steve’s hip, eyes stuttering on those moles that litter his abdomen. 

And then he’s flexing. 

Fucking flexing, because you’ve been caught. He knows it, too. Lips curling upward slowly in that self-satisfied grin of his that makes your stomach swoop low. 

Woman down. 

Dead on arrival. 

The jig is up. 

I can fix this, you think, clearing your throat. “Actually, if you must know…I wanted to learn how to lift weights. I figured it would come in handy with the dogs. Charlie, too. He’s a little reckless on our walks still.”

Steve listens, patting Charlie on the head for emphasis as you lean back against the bathroom mirror, your knees still on either side of your husband’s hips. 

“And you,” you explain, waving a hand in the air, very noncommittal, and hopefully lackadaisical because you’re still trying to play it cool and all of that, “seem to have a wonderful form.”

“You mean wonderful form.” 

Record scratch. Steve’s finger’s pause in their dastardly trail, your eyes darting up to his. Dark. They’re so damn dark, and you swallow the thickness forming like a knot in your throat. 

Mortification rising, cheeks burning, you amend, “That’s what I said.”

“It's not,” he muses, “but if you say so.” 

Another swipe along your injured knee, while Charlie rests his snout on your other. Both your guys, all together in one room. It would make for a cute family moment were it not for the way your husband’s mouth twitches higher, enjoying your turmoil a little too much for your liking. 

“Remember we’re married. We live in the same home. I can still kill you in your sleep.” It’s a deadpan. But your facade breaks a moment later, a giggle rising up despite your threat.  

He leans in closer, and you briefly wonder if this is the first time you’ve noticed those little green flecks he has in his eyes thanks to broad daylight filtering in through the window. When you’re out to dinner for social functions, it’s usually in those dark, dimly lit rooms where you pretend to be absolutely smitten with the man. 

But after that kiss on your cheek after getting Charlie, there’s been a shift. Additional touches, sitting closer on the couch—under the guise of sharing the puppy, naturally—a brush of shoulders as you pass in the hall. The whisper of a kiss against your temple when you fall asleep on the couch watching your shows (or at least when he thinks you’ve fallen asleep). 

Changing. 

Things are changing with the seasons and each day a new layer is added into the reasons why remaining married to Steve Harrington for the next nearly two and a half years might be the most difficult challenge you’ve faced yet. 

Because the only casualty at the end of this…is your heart. 

You’ve never forgotten that, no matter how blurry the lines seem as of late. 

He whispers, “Remember the wife is always the first suspect.” 

His hand finally moves away, and you loathe that you miss it as soon as he does. Charlie scampers into the doorway as Steve helps you down off the counter, gritting your teeth against the flare of pain in your burnt kneecap. You walk down the hall together, saying nothing, basking in the comfortable silence as you enter the kitchen, pulling bottles of water free for both Steve and yourself. He accepts it gratefully, chugging half before leaning his elbows onto the kitchen island. 

“I could show you,” he says, smiling softly at your arching brows. “How to train. I could teach you.”

“Like…workout together?”

His head dips, fingers coming up to remove the hat from his head. And maybe your heart does a somersault when he shakes his hair out, now grown out quite a bit. 

“If you want to,” he says, rubbing his left palm over his stubbly cheek. 

And you do. So you agree to his suggestion and find yourself standing at a squat rack the next morning, thanks to yet another rainy day in the city. 

Steve’s foregone his shirt again. 

A fact you find equal parts exhilarating and infuriating. 

Him with his low hung gym shorts, highlighting the lines of his abdomen, the line of hair your eyes hitch on dipping below the waistband. 

Charlie sits in the distance, a happily distracted bystander to his parents trying to figure out what the hell they’ve gotten themselves into, thanks to the doggy bone Steve brought home for him the prior evening. 

“We’ll start with just the bar.” At the hesitance in which you approach, eyeing it precariously, he adds, “It's not that I don’t think you can handle more. You wrangle animals every day. But your form is important so you don’t injure yourself. Can’t have you ruining the other knee.”

“Couldn't have that,” you laugh, running your finger along the barbell. “Okay, now what?”

“You’re going to stand in front of the bar, legs shoulder width apart.” He does exactly as he says while he’s explaining, thighs separating just enough as he needs to. “You’re going to wrap your hands around the bar, thumbs around the bar. I’m going to get under and rest it just below the base of my neck.” 

He slips under with ease in a maneuver you’ve seen often enough from the numerous TikTok videos you watched in preparation. His biceps shift with the movement, fingers loosening and tightening as he gets into comfortable positioning. He unracks the bar with ease, spreading his legs a little wider, eyes on his reflection across from him. 

“You’re going to take a deep breath and brace your core before squatting.” 

He demonstrates, the bar clearly too light for him, because there’s no struggle on the descent. His thighs don’t even quiver, they merely tighten, highlighting the definition honed from years of time well spent in the gym. 

“You’re going to want your thighs to be parallel to the ground.” 

He lowers until he’s in the proper position. 

Pauses. 

“And then you’ll drive up through the heel.” 

He rises, hips drawing forward, racks the bar, and turns to you. Growing warm at the sudden attention on your figure, you push down the lip of the hat he wears, rushing in front of him to stand warily in front of the squat rack. 

Suddenly, you’re aware of the set of eyes staring at your form in the mirror that belong to Steve. The way he walks up behind you and curls his palms over your shoulder, kneading the muscle there. Suddenly, you’re overly aware of the fact that here's your ridiculously fit husband, and in front of him…you. 

You’re wearing a pair of running shoes you bought a few years ago, a ratty old tee shirt from your early years of college, oversized basketball shorts, and mismatched socks. 

“You know I can always tell when you’re overthinking, right?” Steve asks, rubbing particularly hard on a spot that has you about ready to melt into his arms and call it a wrap on your workout. 

I’m beat, looks like we’re all done here! Great workout, honey. Let’s hit the showers, you want to say, before folding into his embrace. 

“You won’t judge me? For being nervous?” 

“Why the nerves?” He turns you around to face him, peering down at your eyes. “It’s me. Me…who you’ve seen every day for four months now.”

You shrug, because there really isn’t a reason for it. With a heavy sigh of resignation, you turn back around and face your reflection in the mirror, trying to follow Steve’s instructions closely. Feet, shoulder width apart. Fingers around the bar, thumbs curled, palms facing forward. Duck, slide under the bar and rest it at the base of your neck. 

And here’s the part that has you nervous, the lifting up onto your feet, driving the bar up and out of the rack, wobbling a little bit at the unsteadiness of the suddenness of the weight on your shoulders. 

Before you can even start to panic, Steve’s fingers are hovering underneath the spaces beside your fingers, letting you start to adjust a bit and find your balance.  

“I’ve got you,” he says, chest barely brushing your back as you take a couple steps backward on unsteady feet closer to him. “I’ve always got you. I promise.”

I’ve got you. I’ve always got you. I promise. 

You’re brought back to your wedding day. Dancing in the middle of a room full of strangers, arms around your new husband’s neck, swaying to a song you both liked enough to be the one to “define” your day as a couple for your first dance. Recall those words he spoke then. You’re the Harringtons. You’re not alone. It’s the two of you now. Different, and yet the same. Providing you with the strength you need to steel yourself, righting the bar, and training your gaze on the girl in the mirror. 

And you trust him. Wholeheartedly, you trust him, as you drop down into your first squat. Then the second, and the third. The fourth and the fifth come with a little resistance. Six feels like your thighs are burning. Seven has Steve coming up a little closer behind you, his arms extending out into the air on either side of your waist, hovering beneath the bar. 

“Do you have one more?” he asks, and you try…you really do. 

The descent is fine, despite the quivering of your thighs from exertion. But as you try and push back up through the heel your breath rushes out in a puff, head shaking. Steve hurries forward and pushes the bar up and onto the rack, just as you slide out from beneath it and smack backward into a chest. A firm, yet soft, and sweaty chest. That chest comes equipped with arms that curl around your form to keep you upright, and then linger for a moment as you collect your bearings. 

Like this, you can feel every inch of him. The contours of his body, the fullness of his biceps, the hair on his chest. Can feel the cradle of his hips…pressed precariously flush against your backside. And as you glance up at your forms in the mirror, it’s almost like you’re hugging. 

It’s not even an almost, because you are hugging. 

His arms around your waist. His ringed finger resting comfortably against your bicep. His chin over your shoulder, your cheek flush with his. Spine to chest, ass to hip, his breath fanning against your skin, your chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his weight. 

It’s a perfect moment, and neither of you want to disrupt it. There’s only his breath at your back, his arms around your waist, your hands across his forearms. Peace. Safety. Rest. That is, until Charlie Harrington decides he’s not about to let his parents hug without getting a hug of his own, running over to thump his paws against Steve’s hip, demanding his own cuddles. And you both oblige him, dropping down onto the gym floor to give him all the belly rubs he could ever want, pink tongue rolling out of his mouth, paws in the air. 

Laughter. There’s laughter and Charlie’s little yips of happiness. Laughter and Steve’s eyes on your profile. Laughter and your eyes darting to meet him. Laughter…and this unspoken thing left to linger in the air between the two of you. Laughter and maybe something tentative. Something more? A little breathlessness, the rush of air falling from your lungs as he reaches over and tells you how well you did. The gentle squeeze of his hand around your uninjured knee, a sweep of thumb across your skin, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in its wake. 

Eventually, Charlie gets his fill and scampers off. You return to your training session with your husband. There are gentle touches throughout, his arms there to correct your form, to guide you through the program for the day. There aren’t any more lingering hugs, but that ‘something’ burgeoning remains. 

It’s in his easy smiles. In his encouragement. In the brushes of his hands at your arms, your sides, your hips with your consent as he shows you how to move this way and that way. It’s in his praises and his promises. And later, it’s in his maneuvering in the kitchen as he prepares you a smoothie, as he looks at your knee again in his bathroom. 

And you…well, you want to explore it. 

Heart be damned. 

 ——

 Breathtaking. The material of your silk evening gown exudes elegance and sophistication. Eye catching, meticulously crafted, and designed for your exact measurements. 

It’s a timeless silhouette that only enhances your figure. Delicate sweetheart neckline that hugs your chest and shoulders, draping sumptuously at the middle of your bicep. Every movement of your body has it shimmering where it hugs the curves of your body, like an inky night sky. 

However, it’s the back of the dress that’s your favorite part. The captivating open design, leading to the fabric that drapes at the smallest point of your lower back. The way the dress falls down to the floor, swaying and shifting as you smooth your hands over the fronts of your thighs one last time. Exhaling deeply, you reach over to grab your rings from their holder. 

For the first time ever, you feel like Mrs. Harrington. Truly. 

“Well, what do you think, Charlie?” The Bernedoodle lifts his head from your bed where he’s been trying to get the squeaker out of his penguin toy. “Do you think your dad will like it?”

The puppy in question rests his head back down on his paws, nuzzling his face into the blankets you have pushed to the edge of the bed. It’s as good a response as you’ll get, and with one last glimpse at yourself in the mirror, you slide your rings up onto your finger and step out into the hall where Steve’s already dressed in a black tuxedo. And…the sight is just as wonderful, if not better, than on your wedding day. 

Hair freshly blown out and coiffed to perfection, facial hair trimmed, the tux tailored to perfection. He’s foregone his glasses tonight, instead opting for contacts, and you rush over when you notice he’s fiddling with his watch, reaching out to help him settle it into place. 

It’s better than locking eyes with him. Better than pretending you miss the way his eyes roam your form, round and full of reverence—for you. As the watch locks into place he catches your fingers within his own, holding them lightly as he takes a step back and gazes at you. 

“You look…” He pauses. Swallows thickly. You wonder if he can feel the sweat of your palms, can hear the beat of your heart slamming against your sternum. “Wow. You’re—well, you’re always beautiful. But…just…you’re stunning.”

“T-thank you.” 

You stutter your reply, parting enough to take him in. Hair curling around his ears, now in need of a trim. The hair along his jawline and upper lip, the dark tuxedo hugging his form. He’s handsome. Handsome in a way that has you feeling a little breathless, a little nervous as he laces your fingers between his own. 

“Should we…?” The words you speak are left to linger in the air, because Steve moves forward and cups the bottom of your chin. Tips your head up just in the slightest and presses a kiss to your forehead. Warm. He’s so damn warm and you’re pretty sure you’ve now lost all feeling in your toes. “What was that for, Steve?”

“I’m just…I’m really happy you're here with me tonight.”

“Part of the agreement, right?” 

It’s meant to be a joke. But Steve’s face drops, mouth drawing into a firm line. He coughs into his elbow, head turning away from you, and in that you know you’ve messed up. And not wanting to start the night off on a bad foot, you curl your arm around his bicep and drag him forward, forehead against his jaw, left to nuzzle there for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, feeling his hand tighten around yours. “I say things sometimes and I don’t think about how they might be perceived. I think you might actually be my best friend, Steve.” 

“Yeah?” he asks, pulling back enough to stare down into your eyes. “Best friends, huh? I’ll take it.”

“Four months of marriage definitely gets us best friend status,” you tell him, winking. “I’m excited to spend this night with you. I’m a little scared about being around all these people…but I’ll be the perfect Mrs. Harrington, don’t you even worry.” 

“Just be yourself,” he says softly, and you feel your heart jackhammer in your chest. “They’ll love you.”

After that, the two of you make your way down to the main floor as a couple. The doormen whistle and holler as the two of you walk by, dressed to the nines, and apparently looking a little extra loved up, because Hopper gives the two of you a look you’ve never seen before as you approach. Brows high on his forehead, shit eating grin in place, and smug as all hell. 

“Mrs. Harrington,” he says as he opens the door for you and Steve helps you in with an extended hand. “You look wonderful.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Steve muses as you settle down. 

And fuck, you hate what that does to the butterflies in your belly. They’re not even just fluttering anymore. It’s like they all picked up fireworks and set them into motion. There’s not much time to linger on it, however, as Steve rushes around the other side and clambers in beside you, your left hand sliding over onto his lap. You tell yourself it’s because you’re nervous, because you’re about to be around socialites, celebrities, dignitaries and businesspeople alike. 

But when you don’t let go—well, there’s no one to blame but yourself.

The drive is spent in nervous silence. Your fingers around Steve’s and his around yours, playing with your rings as always. The gala is being held at one of your husband’s hotels, and yet nothing prepares you for the grandeur of the Harrington Hotel looming before you. It’s massive. Reaches high up into the city sky, bracketed by workers prepared to take care of the guests’ cars, weaving in and out seamlessly as evening gown after evening gown pours out of classic cars, luxury cars, limousines, and the like. 

“Hey,” Steve says as Hopper opens the door for you and you both step out onto the busy city streets. You whirl around, facing him. Your chests brush lightly. His hand comes to rest in yours, pulling it up to his mouth to brush a gentle kiss to the skin there. “Eyes on me. It’s the two of us, remember?”

 ——

Harrington Hotel’s ballroom is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. High, vaulted ceilings that go on endlessly. White walls with ornate carvings in their tasteful pillars situated on the outside edges of the room. Drapery that likely costs a small fortune hangs from the walls in sweeping arcs, a projection of your new last initial displayed against the far wall, with the charity information beneath.

The room itself is dim, cast in a pretty blue light, with a large chandelier twinkling from up above. Set on each table are beautiful centerpieces with gorgeous flower arrangements. Various deep shades for the approaching fall season, with candles lit on the table below, flickering atop the tablecloth, gold embellished chairs awaiting their many guests for the evening.

Steve helps you get situated upon arriving at your table, tugging your chair out despite your protests that you don’t need him to. And before you can even utter a request, you’re being handed a glass of champagne from one of the many workers on staff for the evening, and finding yourself tugged into a hug by Eddie, who Steve purposefully placed at your table so you’d have someone by your side at all times throughout the night.

A fact you become increasingly thankful for as time ticks by and Steve’s immediately pulled this way and that way into various conversations you can’t seem to keep up with, before he’s ultimately tugged away from you with a promise to be back soon, your request for another glass of champagne when he gets back met with a glowing smile as he rushes off with another businessman, leaving you alone with Eddie.

 “Nope.” Eddie shakes his head, ringed fingers waving in the air. “Nope. No! I know how this goes.”

“How what goes?”

“You’re eye fucking your husband,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Your fake husband, need I remind you. This whole charade has an expiration date. You two decided this. You made your bed, and now you both get to lay in it.”

“I am not.” You exhale deeply, watching your husband raise his hand to the bartender, capturing their gaze so he can order you another champagne. “I just…have been spending a lot of time with him lately. And would it really be the worst thing if I was…interested in the man I’m already legally married to?”

Eddie seems to consider this, twirling around his glass tumbler on the tabletop, silver rings glinting in the chandelier light above. “Look. That would be the best case scenario. I’d love for you two to fall in love, be disgustingly gross together forever looking at him the way you are now. But need I remind you of high school? Early college?”

“Eddie…”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt. For a while there it was just you and me against the world.” 

You know this. Eddie’s been there for it all. For that first boyfriend in freshman year you dated for all of one week, and yet felt like they’d ripped the rug from beneath your whole world. 

To that asshole senior you dated while you were in your junior year, thinking that because he was an ‘older man’ that must mean he’s more mature. That must have meant he knew loyalty wasn’t making out with another girl while you went to grab him another beer at a party. 

And then there was freshman year of college. The pre-med student who promised you the world, only to decide two years later he liked the pretty nurse in L&D and broke things off through a text message.  

He’d been there for those major milestones and all the silly relationships in between. The fleeting things, and yet there all the same. Watching your heart crumble over people who never had any right to it in the first place, with his arms tight around your frame in a hug, a glass of wine at the ready, or your favorite tub of ice cream already purchased and thrown into your lap as soon as you let him know you were coming over. 

The stress remains on his face now. The downward drag of his lips, the furrow of his brows, the way his chocolate brown eyes regard you carefully, like you might shatter right in front of him now. 

But Steve…Steve is different, isn’t he? Steve, who stands right now with his elbow on the bar, tuxedo sculpted flush around his bicep, mid-conversation with a man with salt and pepper hair and thick black glasses. They laugh, and you can hear it from where you're sitting, your thumb running idly on the underside of your wedding rings. 

Eddie catches the movement and slides a palm over your own, stilling you in your movements. “Steve is a good guy. I wouldn’t have let you carry on with this crazy situation if he wasn’t—”

“Wouldn’t let me? When have I ever let anyone tell me what I can and cannot do?” 

Narrowing your eyes at him playfully, he amends with, “I would have strongly advised against it. Maybe stood up when the officiant asked if anyone opposed the marriage.” He swallows, giving your hand a squeeze. “He’s my best friend. But you’re family. And if he fucks it all up, I just want you to know my couch is always open. Don’t know if I’ll be around because of tours and all of that, but you know it’s yours. My snack pantry, too.”

You clap a hand over your mouth in a dramatic gasp. “The snack pantry?”

“The snack pantry.” He nods. 

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though,” you tell him, rubbing your hand along your forearm. “Pretty sure it’s one sided.” 

At that, Eddie breaks out into barking laughter, drawing the curious gazes of multiple tables around him. Someone even hisses for him to be quiet, and he reaches to grab a piece of caviar, poised at the ready to throw it right back at them. Luckily, you manage to whip your arm out and stop him before he can get himself kicked out of the gala. 

“What was that for?” Your voice is a whisper, but you’re shrieking it at him all the same. 

“One-sided?” Eddie laughs again, head shaking. “I’ve seen Harrington flirt with women. I’ve seen him fail time and time again, and because of that…I’ve seen him give up on the whole thing. He said when it happens, it’ll happen. I always thought that was just a thing people said. Today when you two walked in, he looked so damn happy to have you at his side. This room is full of people, but he’s only got eyes for one.”

Nose wrinkling at his words, you snort. “You’re going soft in your old age.”

“It’s called having you as a best friend since we were in middle school, and knowing if I say the wrong thing you could justifiably stab me and I’d have earned it.” His head turns to where Steve is gripping the stem of a champagne flute in one hand, and a glass of whiskey in another. “I just want you to be happy. I trust him. I do. But at the same time, I care about you enough to also know I don’t want to see you cry over another guy ever again. So I’m telling you again, no matter what…my couch always has space for you.”

“Thanks, Eddie,” you breathe out, sniffling on a shaky inhale. 

The backs of your hands dab beneath your lash line, making sure you don’t actually cry in front of the man, and smile fondly up at Steve when he walks over and leans down to press a kiss to your temple, handing you your glass. 

Eddie dips his head at Steve, extending his fingers around the glass he holds in greeting. He lifts the glass to his lips and downs the rest of his drink in one go, before standing to his feet. “Now if you don’t mind me, I am going to try and talk to Chrissy Cunningham. Wish me luck.”

“You’ve been trying to talk to her for m—” At Steve’s pleading gaze, you pause. 

Eddie’s been crushing on the actress for months now. Met her at some party you'd been invited to, where Steve introduced the two of them. She had shyly waved at Eddie, and he’d waved back. 

Annnnd then they never said another word to one another for the rest of that evening, their nervousness too grand. 

Today she looks gorgeous in a powdery blue shimmering gown that matches the hue of her eyes, blonde hair curled to perfection, falling down from the high, slicked back pony tail on her head. From where you’re sitting you can see her laughing at something her friend has said, a bright smile glimmering in the dim light of the ballroom. 

“Ask her about her favorite song. Or—oh, her favorite cheese!” You suggest, bouncing on your chair, clasping Steve’s hand excitedly. 

“Could also ask her if she’d prefer an extra toe or an extra nipple—”

“Surprisingly enough, I actually don’t want to know what kind of stuff you two are into,” Eddie interjects, pinching the bridge of his nose. He levels his gaze with Steve. “Just…take care of her, okay?”

There's silence. Steve’s mouth twitches, his head nodding once. And then, “You know me.” 

Eddie only smiles. You don’t know what the hell that means, nor do you have time to investigate their odd exchange, because Eddie’s off to find Chrissy. 

 —— 

 The gala passes in a blur. 

Evening becomes night, and the ballroom is suddenly illuminated in a lavender glow. Your husband stands on the stage in the far corner of the space, thanking those for joining, and reminds everyone of the purpose of the evening: raising money for charity. 

All of this, this evening, is nothing to him if he’s not giving back. It’s one of the many things you admire about him. The acknowledgement that though he was fortunate to grow up with a life where he never needed to worry, not all experience the same. And the drive to want to do something about it. 

The room erupts into clapping and people disperse to grab drinks, interact with friends and family members, make new acquaintances, and give their donations. 

Your feet have never hurt more in your life in these way too expensive heels, you’re still itching for a dance with your husband once they announce for those wishing to to walk onto the dance floor, and your champagne glass is empty. 

Caught up in a conversation with a business partner, you offer to refill yours and Steve’s glasses, trying to no avail to call over the bartender. 

All around you you're made aware of the decadence in which these people live their lives. 

Women and men alike seemingly drape over the bar, garbed in fancy suits and flowing dresses. Hair perfectly done, makeup to perfection, men showing off with the most expensive watches, shoes that likely cost a small fortune, cufflinks with family initials on them, encrusted with diamond embellishments. 

Tonight, they behave like you’re one of them. A member of their seemingly secret society. They pass you smiles as you go, veneers glowing in the dim light, those who weren’t present at your wedding congratulating you on your marriage. And for a moment, however brief, you allow yourself to enjoy it. To enjoy the affection from strangers. To enjoy being Steve’s wife. Being perceived as the woman who gets the joy of spending forever with a man so well loved by many. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you at these social functions before. I would definitely have remembered you,” a voice from beside you practically purrs. You stand up on your tippy toes once more, waving at a bartender who seems to completely miss you as they rush on by, trying to keep afloat in a sea of bodies. The man waves a hand in the air, and a bartender finally notices. “Jason Carver. Quarterback for the—”

“My husband watches your team.” 

Simple. 

Curt. 

He’s shock of blonde hair and a handsome face, a multi millionaire, ridiculously popular for being one of the best at what he does, but you can already feel the asshole aura radiating off of him—made only more so noticeable when you catch the flash of his smirk directed at you, the trail of his gaze on your bare shoulders, and then the flash of his ring on his left ring finger.

Briefly, you recall meeting his wife, Tina, earlier that evening. A smiling face with a hand never straying far from her presently rounded belly. A little girl due in early January, she’d told you fondly, muttering how she hopes the baby gets her husband's eyes. Those same eyes that look at you now with increasingly questionable intent. 

With that knowledge, you train your stare ahead, rambling off your husband’s order and yours. Jason shifts closer, the heat from his body making your skin crawl, back ramrod straight. 

“And your name?”

You tell him in a rush, watching the bartender start on your husband’s drink behind the bar. There’s a touch along your tricep that has your throat closing, the feeling of his breath nearing your ear as he leans down closer into your personal space making your stomach curl. 

“Can I just say,” he whispers, and your eyes dart up to reluctantly meet him, “you are absolutely beautiful.” 

The backs of those fingertips trail your flesh. Unwarranted and unwanted, chest heaving with the flurry of your choked breaths. The room starts to swirl around the edges, Jason’s voice a revolting caress down your spine, colors melding into a kaleidoscope around you.

Harnessing the shiver of disgust into power, you shift out of his grasp, barely brushing against the person standing on the other side of you. “And you, Jason Carver, are making a fool of yourself.”

And then you hear him. The familiar sound of Steve’s voice in your ears, and then feel his hand at the small of your back, the warmth of his palm and the slight tingle of his wedding ring against your spine tethering you back to reality. Grounding you once more.  

Jason stills beside you as the bartender slides your drinks over into your waiting palms. Steve takes his from your extended hand and sips, leaning down to tug you closer and press a kiss to your temple. All still unfamiliar, all still sending new waves of electricity along your skin. 

“I see you’ve met my wife,” Steve says calmly, and you glide your hand over your husband’s chest for emphasis. 

“I have,” he says thickly, dipping his head. 

“Sweetheart,” you begin, “we were just talking about how lovely and beautiful Jason’s wife, Tina, is. He’s so lucky to have someone like her in his life and definitely shouldn’t ever forget that. We were also talking about how exciting it is that they’ll be having a little girl in just a few months. He was just getting back to her, wasn’t he?”

Jason wastes no time in making himself scarce, leaving you to stand near the bar, still pressing against Steve’s side. Neither of you moves for a bit, and you simply relish in the nearness—shocked by the comfort that barrels into your bloodstream over simply having him there. 

“For the record—”

“You didn’t need me to do that,” he finishes, and your brows shoot up because how the hell did he know what you were thinking. “I know you can take care of yourself. It’s one of the things I…honestly admire about you. But I also want to remind you that you’re never alone. You have me. You know that, right? Isn’t that what a…best friend would do?” 

You snort at the title. “I know. I-I do know that, Steve.” 

But you’d been taking care of yourself for so long you don’t know any differently. So instead you glance over to where Jason and Tina are sitting at their table, his hand over her rounded midsection, overly affectionate for someone who had just moments ago been flirting with another woman.

Another married woman, on top of it. With her husband only a few feet away. 

“He’s an asshole,” you tell Steve. 

“I know. I saw him touching you. I watched you tense up.” His fingers trace the path Jason’s had trailed, covering the tracks he left with his own. “I’m serious. You look for me in a crowd, and I’ll always be there.” 

There’s such a sincerity there. A plea behind those hazel eyes that has you swallowing the remnants of your drink and placing it down on the bar, gripping Steve’s hand tightly within yours. Without another word, you pull him along behind you, Steve managing to drop his drink down onto your table before you tug him over to the dance floor where other couples are now slow dancing, far away in their own little worlds. 

“What are you—”

“I want you to dance with me,” you tell Steve simply, stopping in front of him. Your heels to his leather shoes. “I really really want you to dance with me. I feel like a damn princess in a silly dress, at a ridiculously fancy party with my husband, and I want him to dance with me. Because I hate that I’m enjoying this. I hate that my last name is plastered on everything here, and that I’m in this dress, with these shoes on, and I feel like a pumpkin carriage is going to pull up at any moment and take me home. And if I’m enjoying it, and if at twelve I’m going to be whisked away from here, then I at least want the full experience.”

Steve’s not judgemental. He’s never been. Has never questioned your past, wondered where and what you came from. He’s only ever been open to knowing who you are at present. The everyday. The chaotic and crazy moments. The monotonous ones. The time spent watching your shows, cooking to music in your kitchen together, playing with Charlie in the living room as a movie plays in the background. 

But standing before him now. Him in his tuxedo, staring at you the way he is now, his hands moving to curl around your waist and draw you close—it’s the first time you really feel like someone could take a needle to your current reality and pop it. Like all of this would disappear at any given moment, like it’s all a dream conjured up in your mind. You hate it. Hate it so much that your eyes start to burn with it. 

Sensing your inner turmoil, or seemingly just wanting to hold you, Steve folds you into his chest. Rests one forearm low against your back, and curls his hand around yours, swaying you back and forth on the dance floor as “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra starts playing in the distance. Your dress shifts and moves across the floor, your cheek to his chest, head tucked beneath his chin. He’s warm and solid and you can hear the frantic flutter of his heart, and can feel the slickness of his palm against your back. He’s not wholly unaffected by all of this, either. There’s a sense of comfort in it. This unfamiliarity of feeling—and the uncertainty of what? 

“Can I be honest?” he asks at the top of your head. 

“Always.”

“I hate all of this, too.” 

“Steve, it’s horrifying. Our name is on literally everything.”

“I know,” he laughs, the rumble rattling your skull. You nestle in closer, and his arm drags you in tighter. “Does it make you feel less bad if you strip away all of the—” He waves his hand around at the grandeur of the room. “stuff and just focus on the fact you’re allowed a night out where you dress up. Away from school, away from stress, with the people who care about you? Because take all of this away, and that’s all this is.”

It’s not. And even so, you know he’s right. Because take away all the gorgeous scenery, the fancy clothing, the endless drinks, the designer cars, and the end result is the same: Eddie and Steve are here. 

You’re not sure when Steve became one of those constants, yet it’s the truth all the same. 

“If I’m being honest, parties like this usually end up feeling lonely,” he says heavily, and you tip your head back enough to get a good look at him. “I grew up going to these things. My parents were always leaving to talk to friends, leaving me to sit back at the table. And I mean, people talk to me now, but only because they need something. Never because they want to. Not really.”

And that laugh that…wrinkles your nose…

“I want to,” you tell him softly. 

It touches my foolish heart…

“I know. And that means more to me than you’ll ever know,” he mutters back, a little choked, a little breathless against your skin as he lowers his face into the space beside your ear, cheek to cheek now. 

Lovely…don’t you ever change…

There’s a whisper of a kiss against your shoulder, meant for those looking to see, nothing unusual there. And then he adds, “The parties aren’t so lonely anymore either.”

Keep that breathless charm…won’t you please arrange it?

He holds you closer, if possible. Hides his face in your shoulder—trembling against you as though the words he’s spoken terrify him. They terrify you too. The implication of them. The meaning. The lines in the sand that become blurrier by the day. His head leans back, eyes locking with yours, dancing to your lips, then moving back up again. 

His fingers curl around the side of your cheek, and he leans down. Presses his lips to yours in a way that’s familiar. You’ve done this before countless times at dinner. A short peck. The smallest of brushes. Yet you sigh against him all the same, palm resting over his sternum, his hand along your back. Against your skin that burns hot—hotter now. 

“No one is watching,” you murmur against his mouth and open your eyes to find the room swirling around you. 

They’re not. You’re surrounded by a sea of couples on the dance floor. Even Theobald and Cami, who you would try to go above and beyond to sell your marriage to, are tucked away in their own little world. Forehead to forehead, hand to hand, heart to heart. 

Cause I love you…just the way you look…tonight…

But he doesn’t speak. 

Doesn’t say a word as you sway to the song, chest to chest in what feels like a slow motion love potion, his other hand joining the first on your opposite cheek. His eyes roam your face, a frantic slide across your features, before he’s leaning down and kissing you anew.

I’ll be gentle, echoes in your mind, his soothing words like balm across the sudden skip of your heart. He is nothing but gentle as his lips slot with yours, your lower lip between the plush curves of his mouth. Warmth, warmth, warmth abounds as your eyes flutter closed and you lose yourself in it. 

You’re not his fake-wife right now. You’re not under contract, you’re not putting on a performance for investors or chairmen or Theo, you’re not practicing to make sure it all looks real. This is real—the press of his nose against your cheek, how he uses the touch on your jaw to adjust your head to press in at a better angle, the gentle glide of his soft lips around yours as he kisses you like you’re something delicate. Something precious. Something real.

Time stands still and time rushes forward all at once, the moment exploding through all those ‘what if’s and ‘what are we doing’s and ‘should we’s. None of that exists here as your swaying comes to a stop in the middle of the dancefloor, your fingers tucking into the lapels of his tuxedo in a show of please don’t go.

His steady hand skates down, sliding along the side of your throat to press the tips of his fingers into the nape of your neck, thumb beside your ear in a show of I’m right here.

You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until your lungs absolutely burn in your chest, pulling just a sparse inch away to gasp in air like you’ve just surfaced from water. Steve is similarly affected, shoulders in a heaving rise and fall as he presses his forehead to yours. Neither of you say a word as you catch your breath—your eyes lost in the mossy green woven into the golden brown of his hazel eyes, his flicking back and forth between your gaze and the shine of your lip gloss like he can’t think about anything else.

A gentle clear of his throat, a harsh swallow of nerves before his lips, the ones that just kissed you, tilt in a bashful smile. “I didn’t mean to take your breath away,” he murmurs in a tease, hot air puffing against your lower face as he gently laughs.

Unable to find the part of you that wants to tease back, to make it a joke, to keep it safe, you’re pouring out honesty when you tell him, “You don’t have to try very hard to.”

He remains there, you both do, bodies swaying, foreheads pressing close. There are no more stolen kisses, no whispers of breath between the two of you, only the quiet of togetherness that drowns out the rest of the room. There are no decisions for the ‘what next?’ nor the ‘what does this all mean?’ Instead you relish in the moment, hands still around his lapels, his own covering yours, keeping you near to him. 

And that’s more than enough. 

 ——

——

if there was ever a chapter i would love to hear your thoughts on—it’s this one! please consider reblogging, liking, leaving a comment. you all mean the world to me. haha seeing everyone get excited over this fic has made my week. xo luna. 🤍

[canmom]

Exordia - advance review

So. I finished the book!

This is not everything I will write about Exordia. That will come when the book is like, officially out, and I feel comfy spelling out the ending and quoting passages at length.

This 'advance review' is split into two parts. The first part is quite abstract, so I'll copy it here.

If Baru took an elliptical path towards its subject matter, by defamiliarising and rearranging the material of history… Exordia just gets straight in there.

How to describe Exordia? Maybe you could call it philosophy-driven science fiction, a thought experiment about ethics. Maybe you could compare it to Arrival, but shot up with black humour (it’s a book that could make me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time) and real tragedy (at the core is the genocide of the Kurds in the late 80s, and the many betrayals and failures of American imperialism). It’s got a lot of action and military details, with a good few spies and soldiers as central characters, but broadly it’s one of the sharpest eviscerations of the US military and its role in the world I’ve encountered in Western science fiction.

The first two thirds or so lay out the driving, fascinating ‘what the hell is this thing’ mystery lined with all manner of juicy body horror and drama—yet the core high-concept premise is laid out almost immediately, you know what's at stake. The last third… escalates.

It’s full of the usual meaty Seth themes, iterating on the ideas first laid out in Baru. But it’s a distinct flavour of its own. That escalation is… well, I can’t describe in detail, not while the book isn’t even out, but it’s nuts. Not just for the scale, but for how convincingly it sells concepts that if I described them straightforwardly would sound completely ridiculous.

Equally, it’s a study of a markedly diverse group of characters thrown together from all over the world, each constructed with very evident care and nuance. It goes places that so many writers would probably feel ‘damn, that’s probably way too thorny for someone like me to write about’—and yet somehow, it manages to handle it gracefully each time. Certainly, you can perhaps inevitably tell when Seth is writing from direct experience and when they are (as they used to say back in the ’10s) Writing The Other, if only through what they assume you know and what they need to explain as much as everything—and yet there are always all these telling details (the scientist cursing out R) that make these characters come alive with convincing presence and humour.

(Of course the autistic-ass lesbians are my faves. It’s not as overtly a Lesbian Book as Baru was, but there’s a strong current of gay shit.)

A few other reviewers mention Crichton, but I haven’t read Crichton, so… I’ll have to make other comparisons. But then the thing is it’s very self-aware about existing in the fabric of science fiction. This book is set in our world, not in the near future but the recent past, in the late Obama administration. A lot of the things you might compare it to (including a couple I’ve mentioned, Arrival, Crichton) will be invoked as explicit, in-character allusions as these very sharp, funny, modern people try to make sense of their crazy situation. Sometimes it feels like Tamsyn’s use of memes as texture, but it never gets overbearing. The rhythms of Seth’s prose have been refined by Baru into a powerful suite of devices to make you cackle and go, noooo, Seetttthhhhh…

It’s a fascinating blend of hard-ish scifi, with the big ideas carried by surprisingly accurate higher-mathematical technobabble, and what you could probably best call occultism: narrative and ethics and gods and mythology. Seth always tends to deflect when praised for their ability to hop between a dozen different disciplines and pull them together into one unifying story, saying that they’re just good at looking up summaries, or that they had help from the right people. Maybe so, but it works, it passes the smell test, and Seth’s real genius is their remarkable ability to tie all these big grand ideas back into the world of character and emotion.

Since this is an advance review… I gotta be careful how much I say! Usually I assume you’ve read it if you’re going to and dive straight into the spoilers and long quotes, but here I feel like I should take a little care to avoid describing too precisely the exact beats of the story. (Rest assured I will give it the thorough treatment when it comes out in full).

But, I feel like I want to say something a little more substantial. So here’s a description of the mechanism. If all you want to know is whether you should read this book, hopefully I’ve given you plenty of reasons that the answer is god, yes, do it. If you want to know more, read on.

[mousemilf]

if you’re interested in working out, you could do planks and pushups and other body weight stuff to start with. after a while you might even feel comfortable enough to go to the gym, which ceases to particularly daunting after the first few visits anyhow.

i dont want to sound like, dismissive or like im resistant to helping myself, but tbh i am actually not really interested in working out at this point in my life. im in pretty good general physical condition from having an active job and lifestyle, so im not like sedentary at all - ive just given up (for the time being) on trying to put on muscle for aesthetics....

main issue is that most of my joints are either hypermobile or chronically inflamed, and i feel like every time i do try to go on a fitness kick it gets a little harder bcs so many traditional exercises are ruled out. last time i worked out was a little over a year ago, i had probably a five-month streak of going to the gym at least once a week, and i eventually gave up because i was not making any progress because every time id get frustrated by how much the weight bearing exercises hurt and just hop on the elliptical for half an hour instead. i understand this is a mental failing on my part.

and yeah, ive been in and out of physical therapy a bunch and tried twice to figure out why my joints are so fucked. i have been putting off testing for vascular eds which is the latest theory since my circulation is also completely fucked. but generally im on my feet all day and eat a lot of veggies, ive just accepted im not going to have a huge ass rn bcs ive got so much else going on and god nerfed me.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Haha, okay, so, if you're walking on fairly flat, even terrain and just have a big old stick you found in the woods so you can enjoy the satisfying thunk it makes hitting the ground with each step while you're putting out big Gandalf vibes...

... then yeah, that would be an aesthetic thing.

BUT!

If you're on rough, steep terrain, a walking stick to help balance yourself can be actually quite helpful, as you've basically just turned yourself into a nice and stable tripod.

In fact, a lot of hikers, myself included, use trekking poles:

I started using a pair of these last summer and honestly, they were a game-changer for my shitty shitty fat-girl-knees.

Trekking poles are a lightweight, adjustable, modern alternative to the walking stick; they not only help with balance, but also help you take strain off your legs by letting you put some of your weight on your arms as you push off; sort of like using an elliptical at the gym instead of just the stair climber. You can steady yourself with them and push down on them as you ascend steep parts of the trail, and use them to keep from wiping out on your way down and reduce the impact on your joints when you have to hop down off a big rock. (And if you fall and hurt your ankle, I can say from personal experience, they help a LOT in steadying you as you limp back down to the parking lot, especially when getting through water crossings.)

For mountain hiking, I'm a big fan. I leave them at home though, if I'm gonna be on flatter terrain. They're a bit of an investment, so if you want to do a lot of hiking, they can be worth looking into, but they aren't essential gear. Some people prefer not to use them. But if your balance isn't great or your knees ache a lot, I recommend them.

[welcometololaland]

Hello!

If you’re not here, ignore this, but if you are, I present you this or thats for a nice ask. Elaborations welcome but not required

Only write 1k fics or only write 100k fics?

Crunchy green grapes or mangoes?

Tarlos getting a dog or tarlos getting a cat?

Reading smut on the elliptical or on public transport?

Charlie Swan or Billy Tyson?

Comfort movie, comfort show, or comfort book?

JEN! I LOVE THIS AND THAT ASKS! (pls note expression of excitement, i'm not saying you could learn from the best, but i'm saying-) i actually have an ask game saved in my drafts that i'm itching to play because it's based on something similar, so thanks for reading my mind🧍‍♂️

1. 1k fics or 100k fics? look. it would be better for everyone me if i wrote 1k fics. but i know myself. it has to be 100k. besides, i couldn't leave @three-drink-amy alone in the overwriting club.

2. fuck you (affectionate) with your crunchy green grapes, i'll never get over that. i pick mango because grapes are a tummy hurt culprit (even though i love them).

3. i know you're setting me up, but i'm cat man carlos all the way (and i know you agree with me because lucky in meet you after dark is EVERYTHING to me). like he doesn't hate dogs or anything, in fact i think he likes dogs. but carlos would just vibe with a cat so well (makes sense, tk being a feral stray, after all). i co-sign @liminalmemories21 most recent comment on the rainbow fish. we're drivers of the cat-owner-carlos train, everyone hop aboard!

4. smut on the elliptical is my go to but i will say i have a new workout regime and the elliptical is sadly no longer my friend (which is also why i'm reading a lot less fic these days). so i guess i'm gonna have to find another quasi-inappropriate place to read smut.

5. nice trick question. billy tyson and charlie swan are the same person and we all know it (charlie swan having turned into a vampire and moved to...texas (?) as part of his immortal cover story).

6. comfort movie used to be v for vendetta which is not comforting at all, i just love it. it's probably set it up. comfort show is veronica mars (lone star if i only watch tarlos/126 funny scenes and not the rescues because they stress me out). comfort book is rwrb, hands down.

thanks, jen this was a super fun ask! i wanna send people the three comforts now because i'm so intruiged as to their answers! note to the people: please jump in!

[king-zigzag]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers.

ooo thanks!

indie games! like just all of them in general. right now im playing everhood (i just got to the halfway mark, if you know you know) and i just bought fight knight from it being 80% off. i love indies for how weird theyre allowed to get with their styles and gameplay and how much freedom you have to explore ludonarrative that way and aaaaa

piracy! first i promise that i never pirate indie games, ive got a personal code of honour that i only pirate big-budget or retro stuff where it probably wont be noticed if i buy it or not anyway. besides, i spend most of my time pirating anime anyway. ive got a huge collection of series that i organize with kodi, right now im watching heavenly delusion to keep myself from getting bored when i use my elliptical machine

ive been getting more into baking and cooking lately! right now its mostly simply, ive been told i make a killer bruschetta and im pretty good with lo mein too. it not only the level of indies or piracy where its like, my friends defer to me when the topic comes up, but its still something fun

uhhh commentary youtube videos i suppose! classic "people talking to a camera about a topic" videos. anything from drew gooden/danny gonzalez style and more long-form stuff like jenny nicoleson and defunctland. if im going something like hopping around places ive already explored in outer wilds to try and get the archivist achievement then i may as well listen to someone explain how theme parks work

this ones a little personal, but ive recently reconnected with someone from highschool! we used to be really really close and im really happy were friends again

thanks again, this was really fun!

[xtinedancefit]

Got really annoyed at the gym this morning. First, this creepy old man decided to hop on the one elliptical machine empty between me and another young woman. Even though there were plenty of other machines down the row. Creepy.

Then someone was using the ONE mat in the whole gym, so I couldn’t stretch. Then I went over to the weight lifting room, and literally everyone and their mother was in there too. So I couldn’t do a complete routine. I ended up leaving cause I was uncomfortable.

[tribbetherium]

big ol' chunk of asks

During the Late Rodentocene to Early Therocene, they were successful for a bit but as extreme specialization to a limited niche is a gamble at best, they didn't handle tectonics and changing climes and eventual fusion with the mainland.

They've made a resurgence in the Temperocene, there's not many species and they just fill generalized nondescript medium-sized omnivore niches, but when it comes to population they're quite abundant, as their foraging lifestyle and varied diets keep them from being pressured by podotheres, rabbeasts and piggalo.

Best case scenario, everyone tagteams the harmsters seeing them as a proper common enemy. What happens afterward really depends on how well they can get along with other intelligent sophont species.

Heh...this could make a good "Land of the Lost" or "Terra Nova" style adventure book or tv series where people of present day earth end up on a mysterious planet filled with strange creatures and the huge "they're all Earth rodents!" reveal being the big Season 2 finale plot twist lol.

Similar likely to the Procoptodon and other giant Pleistocene kangaroos that walked on two legs rather than hopped. This could have been a starting point for increased independent leg mobility, with larger pelvic muscles, elliptical femur heads, ankle joints that allow weight-bearing on the inner side of the foot, and perhaps a modification of the muscles at the base of the tail to become more hypertrophied as a counterweight. The caudofemoralis muscle is found in nearly all tailed tetrapods, though likely less so in rodents (though Chinese dwarf hamsters have relatively long tails). In mammals, its action is to flex the tail laterally to the corresponding side while the pelvic limb is bearing weight.

That is, if they can survive the immense crushing pressures. At the bottom of the deepest trenches the water pressure is said to be equivalent to the weight of an elephant, so if they can somehow deal with both that and find a way to respire entirely underwater then they've got a shot.

Not exactly the same genus, but the desert-dwelling duskmice, while likely genetically very different after 150 million years, have not superficially changed from their external appearance and ecological niche, still basically being recognizably hamsters and differentiated only by size or color or behavior. While related to forms such as the whale-like cricetaceans or the canid-like zingos or the really weird ones like the daggoths and rattiles (all of which are cladistically duskmice), some have found a stable niche as small crepuscular seed-eating rodent and have stuck to it successfully for four geologic eras like the horseshoe crab of hamsters.

Galliform and anseriform-esque niches are well within the ratbats domain as of now. Niches where they don't have to fly as efficiently have been filled by the ground ratbats, and some still fill waterbird niches, though wading-bird niches akin to herons is more of a pterodent thing due to their long legged bipedal stances and more flexible necks.

I can't really find the tag? I look it up and nothing shows up. Anyway, I'd assume that it would be something comparable to the faster snakes of today like black mambas which can reach speeds of around 23km/h. Limbs really do just give a speed advantage.

Perhaps? After all tetrapod limbs originated from fish fins which in turn emerged from undulating membranes of early chordates. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

also I vaguely remember something there called a cetitan and apparently it's the name of a Pokemon now lol

[abibliophobiaa]

beyond — chapter six preview

releasing on 6/30/2023, 12pm EST.

——

“Figured I’d get in a workout because Charlie is napping,” you explain, stepping further into the room, stopping in front of the endless rows of dumbbells your husband keeps on a rack against the fall wall of the room with wall to wall mirrors reflecting your nervous image back at you. “And also because it’s raining, so I couldn’t go outside.”

“Uh huh.” He takes a final gulp of his water and places it down onto the floor beside him, about to start more bicep curls when he catches your image in the mirror. “Looking for something?”

Maybe it’s your inability to figure out what weight dumbbells you should start with. Maybe it’s because you’re already forgetting the layout of the TikTok workout you watched earlier that evening you intended to try. Maybe it’s the fact you know you want to start lifting weights, if only to help with your running and dog walking business (some of those bigger dogs get a little rowdy). Maybe it’s the fact you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. As a result of all of that, your teeth pinch against your bottom lip, skin taut between, meeting his stare in the mirror.

“I’ll probably just hop on the treadmill. Go for a walk,” you decide, cowering away from his curious stare to rush to the farther corner of the room where the cardio equipment is.

The present set up has a treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster, and spin bike. More than you’ll ever need, but you’ll never complain because one of the perks now in being married to Steve is that you were able to cancel your own membership and save a little extra cash every month. Hopping on, you tap on the large screen panel to set your leisurely walking pace, pop a pair of headphones in your ears, and drown out the sounds in the room.

The plan works.

For all of five minutes.

Because you’re minding your own business, bobbing along to “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. as you strut across your runway slash treadmill belt, when Steve decides to lift his weights once more. Uses his knees to help prop them up, going right into a set of overhead dumbbell presses.

And damn it, if the sight of him when you walked in hadn’t sent you into orbit, this certainly does.

From where you’re standing you can see his back. The constellation of moles you never really paid much attention to, but now want to mark the path of with your fingers. Want to trace them like the stars in the night sky. With every overhead arch, his sinewy back ripples, muscles in his arms straining, veins sparking to life beneath his skin. From where you’re standing you can see the lines of his abdomen, the sweat pooling across ridges, clinging to those perfectly sculpted divots. Can see the way his chest jumps with each movement, making your thighs clench.

Only—one's thighs shouldn’t clench on the treadmill.

Except yours do.

And promptly send you crashing onto the belt, skin ripping from your kneecap in one rapid swipe.

A giant, gaping black hole in the floor would be a good escape right now. That or a meteor falling from the sky, with its target directed at your head. Anything to rid yourself of the mortification of your current dose of reality.

Steve’s already dropping the dumbbells by the time you fall onto your rear, nearly crashing into the glass window in the process, your trembling hands clutching your scraped up knee.

It burns. A white hot heat that has your eyes prickling, embarrassment burning like a heated iron in your chest. And to make matters worse, Steve utters out a soft “baby” as he drops down in front of you, and that might as well signify the end of all life function. Because not only have you fallen off a treadmill ogling your increasingly “not-so-fake-husband,” but now he is calling you “baby” on top of it all.

“Baby, let me see,” you realize he’s saying as you come crashing back to reality, the hazel of his eyes growing darker as he crawls closer on the floor, trying to inspect your knee. With a reluctant sigh, your hands fall away, revealing the freshly torn skin. “That’s a mean looking burn. Come on, let's put something on that.”

“I’m fine right here,” you argue, back pressing against the mirrored wall.

“Why?”

His brows lift high on his forehead, left hand curling over the unbroken skin of your left knee. You can see he’s wearing a black silicone wedding band today, not his usual wedding ring, and yet you don’t miss that simple gesture. Always wearing that symbol of your union, while your own are presently sitting high enough in a ring holder so Charlie won’t be able to mistake them for very expensive doggy chew toys.

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”

“It’s a little burn, and then you’ll feel better,” he promises, giving your knee a little squeeze. “I’ll be so gentle.”

“Steve.”

“Honey.”

——

see you friday! 💍

[i-am-why]

Day 12

Are any of you tumongrels actually readng this? like i've been doing for way more than 2 weeks outside of tumblr and I feel like i've been singing to rats for awhile (terrible analogy).

Anyway Equirate

Equirate is the secret third moon of Sburb, which most frequently appears in sessions with odd numbers of players- though, all things considered, is quite rare. Equirate rotates in an elliptical orbit, meaning it tends to show up later in an average session due to being outside the regular incipisphere for most of the session. (The “positioning” of the session relative to Equirates’ “current” position also plays a role in whether it will be encountered.) It is also a 4th dimensional object,- depending on the “rotation” of a given session, a different “slice” of Equirate will be made accessible. When appearing in a session, it will settle into an orbit at the same semi-axis as the player’s lands, but also “from the linking of prospitan and Dersite chains,” akin to “a lake that forms between 2 rivers.” Its architecture is akin House of Stairs ( to this painting )by MC Escher, and is implied to be infinitely large, or at the very least, incomprehensibly so.

Unlike Derse and Prospit, which are generated every time a new session is started, every instance of Equirate is the exact same moon. If a Carapacian manages to get a hold of either the Equiration ring or scepter from the “dead” version of the moon, said Carapacian would gain an incomprehensible amount of power- as upon entering a session, the orb towers on Derse and Prospit send out a copy of their “data” to the corresponding towers on Equirate. Should a Carapacian get the ring or scepter from the “live” version of the moon, the amount of power they gain will be functionally random- they may get lucky and get it from when Equirate has entered a large quantity of sessions, or may get unlucky and get it from when the moon has entered relatively few sessions- if any.

The Equitarians aim to bring the war between Derse and Prospit- as well as Paradox Space itself- into a complete standstill. In other words, a perfect stasis, where nothing changes whatsoever. On smaller timescales, this manifests as prolonging sessions and the war between the two moons for as long as possible. On larger timescales, the exact manifestation of this aim is variable. One such attempt was through aligning with Professor Mayonaka, as they believed The Tear which Mayonaka’s universe hopping device helped create could eliminate all of existence- which would bring about a form of stasis. Mayonaka had slightly different aims however, merely intended to use The Tear, as well as the Equitarian ring and scepter to destroy English- both through attempts in preventing his existence in the first place, and in destroying him at various points during his lifespan.

Professor Mayonaka had a hideout on the dead version of the moon.

Equirate was eventually made to implode as a result of the two universe hoppind devices exploding, collapsing the central support structure which was resisting the immense gravitational forces of the moon. The implosion of the 4th dimensional moon was powerful enough to create the Pink Sun, the Horrorterrors answer to English’s Green Sun. Unlike English, the Horrorterrors did not draw power from the sun, rather, they helped to strengthen and fuel it.  This implosion occurred within the Gamma Kid’s session. Some of the effects of the Tear echoed backwards in time- some of the trolls became aware of it and believed that the Kids were going to cause it to implode, putting them at odds with the kids.

The dangerously unstable and powerful energies of __sprite’s Kernel, wide open to outside influences due to the cracks on the spire orbs, collided with a shard of Equirate that temporarily “phased-in” to their medium before vanishing again. It emerged in an unknown location in Paradox Space, where the shard of the moon began to “grow” into living Equirate. As such, the entire moon is actually a JuJu that creates itself, one which belongs to Professor Mayonaka.

Before the events of the Masterpiece, Equirate appeared in Caliborn’s session. (Due to Calliope dying pre-entry, and thus playing no role in the session, she was not granted an Equirate dreamself.) Mayonaka had gathered the Midnight Crew (the beforan variant he was leading at the time) and went on an escapade to destroy English before he was created. This, obviously, failed, but Mayonaka managed to flee back to Equirate and made his way to post meteors Alternia, wherein he rebuilt the Midnight Crew.

[merriblu]

Today I hopped back on the bike after a REALLY long break because I was getting my cardio in while hiking with the dog and visits to the fitness studio (elliptical or inclined treadmill) . Well, for the past few months I’ve been really focusing on strength training to prepare my body for incorporating 5k training (come hell or high water I WILL do a Turkey Trot in 2024!!!).

Y’all… the bike training was so pleasant. Yes, I pushed myself to the max but it felt good to push myself, not like I was dying just to meet the minimum cadence and resistance. I didn’t feel defeated.

I’m so happy that the last six months of training have paid off. Cardio on the bike is going to wonders for my heart health. I just won’t get that type of workout hiking with the dog.

Days like this are so important for my health journey. It’s so easy to get I to that slump of “am I even making progress? Why should I keep trying”. I know it sounds very mushy, but I feel like a whole world of opportunities opened up for me. I’m done reminiscing about how fit i was in the past because I’m so curious to see where this new path will take me.

[cyarskj1899]

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-songs-2022/

The 100 Best Songs of 2022

By PitchforkDecember 5, 2022

Featuring the 1975, Kendrick, Steve Lacy, Alvvays, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Glorilla, and more

Image by Callum Abbott, photos via Getty Images

In a year so bizarre that a Kate Bush single from three decades ago somehow topped the charts, it’s fitting that some of the year’s best tracks felt like wildcards. Rising rappers (Glorilla, Ice Spice, and Flo Milli) took over hip-hop, indie comeback kids (Alvvays, Alex G) wrote genre hits, electronic experimentalists (Alan Braxe, Rachika Nayar, Two Shell) kept us on our toes, R&B singers (Amber Mark, Yaya Bey) dug deep into explorations of self, and the biggest pop stars (Harry Styles, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift) couldn’t help but lean into nostalgia. Here are the best songs of the year. (And no, “Running Up That Hill,” released in 1985, was not eligible.)

Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.

Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2022 wrap-up coverage here.

100.

Harry Styles: “As It Was”

“As It Was” is the kind of twinkly little confection that would easily get the indie kids pogoing at any local DIY dance night at any point in the last two decades. It just happens to have been recorded by one of the biggest pop stars in the world in 2022 instead of, say, the Strokes twenty years earlier. “You know it’s not the same as it was,” Harry Styles sighs, giving a nod to the easy bait of nostalgia. A pointillist synth line tap dances through the song, and all over that nagging pandemic-era malaise we’re all desperately trying to shake. Resistance is futile. –Amy Phillips

Trending Now

Open Mike Eagle Rates Punching Nazis, Taylor Swift, and Pop Tarts

Listen: Harry Styles, “As It Was”

99.

Black Midi: “Welcome to Hell”

Many songs have contended that war is hell; few have ever depicted that hell as crazed as this. Black Midi’s “Welcome to Hell” is four minutes of disorientation, a trillion-BPM assault on the senses that plays like Saving Private Ryan’s Normandy scene as a fast-forwarded Bugs Bunny cartoon. Somewhere amid all the Les Claypool riffage and incalculable time signatures, the band squeezes in a bizzaro homage to Shirley Bassey’s James Bond themes. The ridiculousness of the pastiche doesn’t dull its intensity one bit. –Evan Rytlewski

Listen: Black Midi, “Welcome to Hell”

98.

Phoenix: “Tonight” [ft. Ezra Koenig]

More than 25 years into their career, Phoenix are still finding new ways to sound brilliantly, effortlessly cool. Case in point: “Tonight,” a smooth collaboration with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. Drunk on the promise of a great night out, frontman Thomas Mars charms his way through dinner and the course of an entire relationship in the span of one magical encounter. A sobering, early-morning apology inspires a fleeting moment of self-reflection as the vocalists pause, muse existentially about their endless partying, and ultimately resolve to do it all again, just one verse later. It’s an endearing defense of the pleasure principle from two guys who have seen their share of debauchery—but goddamn if it doesn’t sound fun. –Rob Arcand

Listen: Phoenix, “Tonight” [ft. Ezra Koenig]

97.

Tomberlin: “happy accident”

Tomberlin got to know her new home of New York by walking it. “happy accident,” from her sophomore album I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This…, unravels like an aimless meander through the city with unruly thoughts spiraling out along the path. Set to Cass McCombs’ elliptical guitar loop and thumps of percussion that land like leaden footsteps, the singer-songwriter interrogates a relationship that has been ambiguous for too long, her voice seething and weary. A relationship, just like a walk, isn’t always in need of a destination, and “happy accident” lingers brutally in the uncertainty of what might come next. –Carrie Courogen

Listen: Tomberlin, “happy accident”

96.

Ela Minus / DJ Python: “Pájaros en Verano”

What’s there to be grateful for in a hopeless world? According to Ela Minus, clouds, crickets, and sleep, to name a few. “Pájaros en Verano” is an ode to the quotidian pleasures we often ignore. Her praise for the small stuff pairs perfectly with DJ Python’s bubbly production, led by a bright, sweet mallet-like synth that meanders through minimal percussion. It’s a subtle anthem that invites you to slow down and linger on life’s simple delights. –Arjun Srivatsa

Listen: Ela Minus / DJ Python, “Pájaros en Verano”

95.

Horse Lords: “May Brigade”

Horse Lords has spent the past 12 years on a quest for utopia, seeking freedom and euphoria within the structures of their experimental rock music. On “May Brigade,” a clashing, raucous pattern born out of microtonal crunch and minimalist repetition morphs into free jazz freneticism, and distant saxophone trills get swallowed by drones and shimmering static. The song’s effortless abandon shows us the bliss that lies beneath Horse Lords’ heady ideas; within its sharp twists and turns there lies a motivating joy—a reminder to always keep on keeping on. –Vanessa Ague

Listen: Horse Lords, “May Brigade”

94.

Julia Jacklin: “Lydia Wears a Cross”

“Lydia Wears a Cross” is like driving rain, slapping you in the face, reminding you that you are both awake and alive. Julia Jacklin sings about religion and what it’s like to be a girl, sitting in the pews, whispering holy words without knowing what any of it means. She prays for Princess Diana; she listens to the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. “I’d be a believer,” she sings, “If it was all just song and dance.” Around her, a fuzzed-out guitar crashes into a kick drum. It’s a look back at childhood, where real sorrow and brutal honesty outweigh nostalgia. –Sophie Kemp

Listen: Julia Jacklin, “Lydia Wears a Cross”

93.

4s4ki: “Punish”

“Punish” explores nihilistic self-loathing through a multi-genre electronic fantasia. The Saitama-based hyperpop artist 4s4ki alternates between clear and Auto-Tuned singing across the song’s quickly shifting sonics, which incorporate sounds from digicore and Japanese hip-hop. Her scream of the titular “punish!” flashes like a brief, electric glitch against the serrated drum‘n’bass chorus—a cry for help enmeshed in a suffocating, cybernetic pop landscape. –Zhenzhen Yu

Listen: 4s4ki, “Punish”

92.

Wednesday: “Bull Believer”

Wednesday’s “Bull Believer” is a two-act grunge odyssey in which lead vocalist Karly Hartzman jumps from chronicling Spanish bullfighting to describing being ignored by the guy she loves at a party. The dizzying song alternates between abrasion and solace, cranking back up just as it reaches a point of melancholic calm; monstrously heavy guitars and lap steel squelch beneath Hartzman’s guttural screams. As her paramour is distracted playing Mortal Kombat, she echoes the video game’s calls to “finish him!,” crying torturously before coming back for one final whisper—a satisfying end to an emotional nine-minute-long journey. –Margeaux Labat

Listen: Wednesday, “Bull Believer”

91.

Two Shell: “Pods”

Anonymous UK bass and hyperpop pranksters Two Shell insist that they aren’t trolls, which rings true. What kind of troll only spreads joy? The opening tremolo of “Pods” flies like a shuttle over a laser-weaving loom, and its 15-second breakdown feels more like being in a video game than any point of Ready Player One. There’s a Sunset Strip guitar solo with baroque overtones; an opera-cloaked organ tone is stuffed with hyphy vocals and capped with an EDM riser. Too good to be untrue, Two Shell filigree the line between mystery and mischief. They’ll probably turn out to be AI. –Brian Howe

Listen: Two Shell, “Pods”

90.

Joe Rainey: “bezhigo”

Joe Rainey’s music attests to the importance of community. A member of the Red Lake Nation of Ojibwe people, Rainey knows the value of surrounding yourself with others who inspire you, and this belief underlines every track on his debut Niineta, a deep collaboration with producer Andrew Broder that remembers loved ones who’ve passed and samples decades’ worth of pow wow recordings. Standout “bezhigo” weaves together three separate recordings of Indigenous vocalizing, and as the string arrangements surge, a steady beat arrives in the form of industrial clang, sounding like the repeated strikes of a blacksmith’s hammer. There’s beauty, “bezhigo” suggests, in forging one’s identity, purpose, and dreams alongside those who share your vision. –Joshua Minsoo Kim

Listen: Joe Rainey, “bezhigo”

G.O.O.D. Music / Def Jam

89.

Pusha T: “Diet Coke”

You gotta hand it to Pusha T—it takes dedication to still strive toward drug-rap perfection 20 years after making a song as good as “Grindin.” On “Diet Coke,” he raps over an 88-Keys beat that’s old enough to be called up for jury duty—all vacuum-packed drums and scratched-in vocal samples—but King Push has always made his music outside of linear time, peddling rhymes as eternal as the drug trade itself. “Master recipes under stove lights” he explains on the hook, ostensibly a reference to crack, but he could also be talking about how he manages to pull off this one kind of track again and again. –Dean Van Nguyen

Listen: Pusha T, “Diet Coke”

88.

Panda Bear / Sonic Boom: “Edge of the Edge”

Panda Bear and Sonic Boom began their joint album Reset with a simple premise: take the opening moments from great songs of the 1950s and ’60s, loop them, and shape their compositions out from there. “Edge of the Edge” uses Randy & the Rainbows’ “Denise” as its melodic germ, augmenting the 1963 doo-wop hit’s sweet and simple melody with sleigh bells, hand claps, and Panda Bear’s bittersweet croon before beaming in transmissions of dial tones and modem sounds from a less distant past. It’s an infectiously catchy tune that transcends time as it embodies these trusted collaborators’ experimental spirit. –Shy Thompson

Listen: Panda Bear / Sonic Boom, “Edge of the Edge”

Saddest Factory / Dead Oceans

87.

MUNA: “What I Want”

Not since Jonathan Richman’s “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar” has a pop song so perfectly captured the bubbly joy of taking sips, shaking hips, and regarding leather dykes with love. But “What I Want” is about self-love too. MUNA singer Katie Gavin doesn’t want to just date a girl, she wants a girl to want to date her. The song hits hard on a dancefloor and even harder in a graffiti-spattered bathroom; face the mirror, freshen your lipstick, and mouth the hook: “There’s nothing wrong with what I want.” –Peyton Thomas

Listen: MUNA, “What I Want”

86.

Burial: “Strange Neighbourhood”

You could say that “Strange Neighbourhood” and the almost-album it comes from, Antidawn, are formulaic—but it’s a formula Burial patented. He owns this sound: the shivery shards of imploring vocals that flare up like embers aloft on the wind, the funeral-parlor organ swells, the moist reverberance and muffled found sounds, the disconcerting pauses and glitchy lapses where it feels like the track is giving up the ghost. Rather than seeming like déjà vu, this 11-minute audio-movie evocation of the hauntedness of urban space feels as fresh and original as the first time you heard Burial. You start to think he could carry on like this forever. –Simon Reynolds

Listen: Burial, “Strange Neighbourhood”

85.

Ka: “Ascension”

In the first verse of “Ascension,” Ka describes his style as “measured efficiency.” Indeed, the veteran rapper and producer has cut away all excess from his music, be it programmed drums or nonessential syllables and details. And on this highlight from Languish Arts, one of two albums he dropped in September, the Brownsville, Brooklyn native pries into his childhood—a topic that has grown more central to his writing in recent years—to explain why he believes this cool remove is not only an aesthetic choice but a moral good. Sampled reminiscences about family bookend the song, while Ka bounces, as ever, between the material and metaphysical, the days “long as the solstice” and the uncles’ lives cut short. –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Ka, “Ascension”

84.

Sharon Van Etten: “Anything”

“Anything” is about an undefined anxiety so persistent, it numbs everything else, and keeps you up until dawn. At first, Sharon Van Etten’s admission of ambivalence in the face of war and climate collapse—“I didn’t feel anything”—seems like a self-soothing mantra. But this booming standout from her album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong pivots at the bridge, when her lover comforts her, providing a moment of connection that nudges her away from the emptiness. As the song builds from spare, haunted strums to a surging crescendo, Van Etten’s tone flips, and by the end she’s belting out her unfeeling thoughts with palpable desperation. –Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Listen: Sharon Van Etten, “Anything”

83.

Cole Pulice: “City in a City”

Normally, Oakland saxophonist Cole Pulice uses live-signal processing to stretch their loosely winding jazz into sinuous, squishy shapes. But “City in a City,” the centerpiece of their wonderfully amorphous album Scry, features no such electronic manipulation. The song glides around two tumbling piano chords, as Pulice lets their unadorned saxophone lead the way, dancing up and down its range with autumnal grace. As transporting as Pulice’s more overtly experimental work can be, they’ve never made anything quite so simple and stunning. –Sam Goldner

Lisen: Cole Pulice, “City in a City”

82.

Bandmanrill: “Real Hips”

Bandmanrill never wastes a good sample. On “Real Hips” the kinetic Newark rapper comes through with the zeal of a personal trainer, transforming a Jersey club classic into a HIIT workout aimed at your abductors. DJ Bake and KilSoSouth ensure the beat is both vigorous and elastic—the right balance for Bandmanrill to rifle through talk of parents, success, and paranoia. He always comes back to that instructional, hands-on-hips hook, though, because this is a reminder that, for how frenzied life can be, having a good time should reign supreme. –Joshua Minsoo Kim

Listen: Bandmanrill, “Real Hips”

81.

Animal Collective: “Royal and Desire”

Animal Collective have done all the woodsy jamborees and primeval oozing and childlike explorations one could ever ask for, but “Royal and Desire” is above all beautiful—hardly one of the first words used to describe most Animal Collective songs. Deakin takes a commanding lead on the closer of Time Skiffs, their best album in more than a decade, with the rest of the band rising behind him in gaseous harmony. The music is sweet and legato, the sound is psychedelic rock falling from a soft-serve machine. This is AnCo at their most imperial, slowly stepping down the aisle, climbing atop the dais, and solemnly placing a lava lamp on the altar. –Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Animal Collective, “Royal and Desire”

80.

Kelela: “Washed Away”

Over the course of three fully realized projects in the mid-2010s, Kelela wove together R&B’s tenderness with the ruggedness of club music, showing us that in allowing pain and pleasure to coexist, we might succeed in forging a path from the former to the latter. And then she disappeared. “Washed Away,” her first new song in five years, explores the aftermath of reconciliation and the eternal question of what happens next. While some might succumb to neurosis and anguish, Kelela chooses peaceful meditation. Devoid of both kick drums and confessional lyrics, the ambient track embraces the vast unknown of the future with a grace akin to ocean mist landing gently on bare skin. –Jessica Kariisa

Listen: Kelela, “Washed Away”

79.

Gilla Band: “Backwash”

Gilla Band wisely recognize that nearly all of the best ideas about how guitar bands can move on from punk come from hip-hop and electronic music. “Backwash” is the Irish band’s culminating proof-of-concept: As abrasive as it is propulsive, as direct as it is diffuse, the song runs post-punk’s basics through production tricks you can learn from modern-rap masterpieces like Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red or Earl Sweatshirt’s Some Rap Songs. The guitars are subjected to blown-out digital processing with no regard for how the sound might be replicated onstage; lyrics about the horror of binge-watching Big Brother cumulate into a deluge of consciousness. Even the title is an inversion of punk-rock cliché: “Backwash” isn’t an image of spitting into someone’s face, but choking on your own disgust. –Ian Cohen

Listen: Gilla Band, “Backwash”

78.

Yung Kayo: “hear you” [ft. Eartheater]

Yung Kayo’s glitchy warble makes for a natural fit within Young Thug’s YSL roster, but the Washington, D.C. native’s music feels closer in spirit to the glittery rave-pop of Drain Gang than to Atlanta trap. On “hear you,” Kayo leaves the material realm, ascending to a dimension of pure light and sound. The presence of Queens-based experimentalist Eartheater might seem leftfield for an album that also features Gunna and Yeat, but her almost-inhuman vocal range makes for a symbiotic duet with Kayo’s unpredictable crooning. –Nadine Smith

Listen: Yung Kayo / Eartheater, “hear you” [ft. Eartheater]

77.

Porridge Radio: “Back to the Radio”

“Back to the Radio,” the momentous opener that sets the table for Porridge Radio’s third album of vein-bulging post-punk, is essentially one big crescendo. Spartan melodies cut through drums that jitter with nervous energy, as the British band approximates the feeling of walls closing in. Meanwhile, frontwoman Dana Margolin fills in the scenes of a hollow relationship: a house on lockdown, mutters in a slow-moving car. Porridge Radio render this quotidian prison so evocatively, it’s hard to not want to stay a while. –Mehan Jayasuriya

Listen: Porridge Radio, “Back to the Radio”

76.

Mabe Fratti: “Cada Músculo”

At first, “Cada Músculo” is a thicket of riddles and warnings—a brawny cello rises and lunges, a sibilant violin snarls and lashes, an inquisitive synth taunts and vanishes. This is how the Mexico City-based composer and singer Mabe Fratti renders our vexing world. Her voice glides through the mess, disarming it through self-sovereignty: “Cada músculo tiene una voz,” or “Every muscle has a voice.” Those rough sounds soften when she opens her mouth, sorted into something like breezy chamber pop, the mysteries of this moment temporarily banished. The end’s howling strings are a stark reminder of the iterative effort that existence demands. –Grayson Haver Currin

Listen: Mabe Fratti, “Cada Músculo”

75.

Earl Sweatshirt: “Tabula Rasa” [ft. Armand Hammer]

After a pair of laconic records whose goal seemed, at times, to obfuscate, Earl Sweatshirt returned this year with SICK!, an album dominated by songs that cut through the noise. Its centerpiece is “Tabula Rasa,” a patient piano number that pairs him with the unvarnished New York duo Armand Hammer. While Elucid and billy woods rap—vividly—about human connections made, broken, and fraying, Earl details the way a similar disintegration forced him to remake himself. “This game of telephone massive,” he raps during his loping verse. “I do what I have to with the fragments.” –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Earl Sweatshirt, “Tabula Rasa” [ft. Armand Hammer]

74.

Ibibio Sound Machine: “Protection From Evil”

Like a fog machine dosed with sage oil, the opening track of Ibibio Sound Machine’s Electricity brings a heady rush to the disco. Over a cauldron of stomp and shimmer, British-Nigerian frontwoman Eno Williams repeats her incantation: “Spiritual/Invisible/Protection/From evil.” Produced by Hot Chip, the song hovers at the crossroads of Afrobeat and electronic pop, mixing horns, synths, and robotic vocalizations. Each element amplifies Williams’ impassioned chant, a benediction delivered with the haunted force of an exorcism. –Judy Berman

Listen: Ibibio Sound Machine, “Protection From Evil”

73.

Babyface Ray: “Sincerely Face”

Plenty of local scenes around the country tried to recapture the magic of Michigan rap this year, but none of them boasted a one-of-a-kind character like Detroit’s own Babyface Ray. “Sincerely Face” lays out what has made Ray such a pillar: Through his icy delivery, basic rap flexes about Rolexes, courtside seats, and steakhouse dinners sound revelatory. Over a chilly beat, he shrugs his way through a mix of life lessons with inimitable cool. It’s the type of song where the fly aura rubs off on you every time you play it. They only make ’em like this in Michigan. –Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Babyface Ray, “Sincerely Face”

72.

Eliza Rose / Interplanetary Criminal: “B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)”

Taking inspiration from an immaculate poster for the 1973 Pam Grier blaxploitation film Coffy, every flirty bar and bubbly riff of “B.O.T.A.” oozes cool. Sassy organ house has long lit up British dancefloors, but topping the charts was hardly a forgone conclusion for underground UK Garage producer-DJs Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal. After meeting the accelerant of TikTok, though, the tune’s explosion felt inevitable; it began festival season as a limited pressing and ended it as the hottest record in the UK and Ireland. In a year that resurfaced important debates about the ownership and authenticity of dance music, two things about “B.O.T.A.” ring true: It belongs to the people, and it’s real as fuck. –Gabriel Szatan

Listen: Eliza Rose / Interplanetary Criminal, “B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)”

71.

Shygirl: “Coochie (a bedtime story)”

“Coochie (a bedtime story)” is the sweetest X-rated lullaby imaginable. Shygirl starts things off on a direct line with, well, pussy, sounding like she’s cooing into an old Nokia phone: “Hello? Is anyone there? It’s the coochie calling.” What follows is a soft, funny testament to the UK artist’s unapologetic sexuality, its liquid beat gliding, stuttering, and zipping under her airy vocals. That Shygirl can proclaim her own horniness with such cuteness and levity is a coochie-attracting combination in and of itself. –Margeaux Labat

Listen: Shygirl, “Coochie (a bedtime story)”

70.

Oso Oso: “Computer Exploder”

Like a drunk staggering across the beach, “Computer Exploder” lurches toward its chorus in fits and starts. The sunny skies of the opening verse are soon clouded with references to heartbreak and addiction, collapsing in a screeching rush. The hook, when it finally arrives, flashes Oso Oso’s signature blend of surf-rock guitars and emo harmonies, the love and drugs complicated by frontman Jade Lilitri’s self-referential songwriting. “When nothing goes quite like you planned it/Write 12 songs, swing like you can’t miss,” he sings in a nod to his latest album’s tracklist. The go-for-broke candor captures Lilitri’s ambition, casting him as a heavy-hitting rocker in an era that’s all but dispensed with them. –Pete Tosiello

Listen: Oso Oso, “Computer Exploder”

69.

Mavi: “Baking Soda”

On the sun-kissed “Baking Soda,” producers Monte Booker and Amarah break down the beat so radically that its melodic tendons barely attach to the rhythmic spine—when Mavi murmurs, “I been gave my soul away to the drum, I’mma live forever” on the chorus, the drum itself feels a hair’s breadth away from oblivion. It’s a complementary backdrop for the heady North Carolina rapper’s elusive insights; what does it mean, exactly, when he says, “And your tears is now trees”? The meaning blooms in the line’s lovely, lingering after-image, as the beat crumbles and rebuilds itself like the last dregs of a dream. –Jayson Greene

Listen: Mavi, “Baking Soda”

68.

Dehd: “Bad Love”

Dehd’s Emily Kempf is howling with her chest, sprinting at top speed towards a new dawn. The beatific “Bad Love” is more than a bold mea culpa for hurting people in the past, it’s a rapturous embrace of the dangerous task of loving again. Kempf stutters syllables in her quest for “re-re-redemption,” her hopscotching vocal rhythms echoed by machine-gun bursts of snare and sparse guitar licks. With the wind in her sails, her roars swell in size, pushing past the timidity of heartbreak to arrive at one of the most invigorating indie rock anthems of the year. –Jesse Locke

Listen: Dehd, “Bad Love”

67.

Koffee: “Pull Up”

Koffee boasts about her new luxury lifestyle on “Pull Up,” but it’s never arrogant or sanctimonious. Over an aquatic beat from British-Ghanaian producer Jae5, the Jamaican singer’s orotund voice feels celebratory, a match for a track that bridges the sunny textures of dancehall and Afrobeats. If anyone else leaned out of the window of a drifting car and sang about pulling up to the party in an Audi, it’d probably feel boring and out-of-touch. But when Koffee does just that in the video, her mouth full of braces, you can’t help but grin along with her. –Isabelia Herrera

Listen: Koffee, “Pull Up”

66.

Hagop Tchaparian: “Right to Riot”

The most immediate cut on British-Armenian producer Hagop Tchaparian’s startling debut album Bolts, “Right to Riot” merges worlds. Droning zurna melodies and tumbling dhol drums vie clamorously for our attention, but Tchaparian’s mastery of more traditional tactics—rising bass, cleansing releases, and a sample looped to sound like an alarm—make the track a gem of contemporary techno, whittling down the Four Tet collaborator’s sweeping vision into a sharp point. –Daniel Felsenthal

Listen: Hagop Tchaparian, “Right to Riot”

65.

Arctic Monkeys: “Body Paint”

Although the meta space-lounge of 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino felt like a departure, this year’s The Car reinforced how elusive Arctic Monkeys’ debonair art-rock has always been. “Body Paint,” the album’s cinematic centerpiece, belongs in the revered UK band’s pantheon of slippery slow burners, alongside enigmatic 2000s ballads “505” and “Cornerstone.” Swapping orchestral swoon for glam-rock crunch midway through—right after Alex Turner croons, “And if you’re thinking of me/I’m probably thinking of you”—the song is an emotive puzzle, obsessed with artifice and lingering smudges you can’t wash away. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Arctic Monkeys, “Body Paint”

64.

Perfume Genius: “Ugly Season”

On the LGBTQ+ anthem “Queen,” Mike Hadreas embraced the power in being viewed by homophobes as a “sea witch with penis tentacles.” Eight years later, over the skeletal reggae beat of “Ugly Season,” his exploration of queerness veers further left: He is a heathen outcast finding abject pleasure and autoerotic arousal in filth, rot, and hearty handfuls of Vaseline. Hadreas’ voice is high and pure amid guttural screams and mammalian lurches, offering hymnic bon mots that could have been written by Jean Genet: “Split, black, pit.” This year, as queer artists powerfully embraced monstrousness-as-dissent, “Ugly Season” burrows into outsider living to emerge as a swamp creature with carnal allure and a tender caress. –Owen Myers

Listen: Perfume Genius, “Ugly Season”

63.

Azealia Banks: “New Bottega���

Azealia Banks considers the difference between fashion (what you wear) and style (what you possess) on “New Bottega,” which is to say, she is aware of how much she lays claim to. Some of the biggest albums this year drew on club sounds like a strategy, but the Harlem-bred Banks has always made a home inside house music. As she lists the names of designers she likes and doesn’t like in a bad Italian accent, “New Bottega” enters into the Banksian capsule collection—a staple in a malcontent designer’s oeuvre. –Mina Tavakoli

Listen: Azealia Banks, “New Bottega”

62.

Fever Ray: “What They Call Us”

This is the sound of crisis approaching from all sides: the escalating cruelties against its subjects (“did you hear what they call us?”) and the indifference of those watching it happen (“can you fix it, can you care?”). In a desperate plea for mercy, Karin Dreijer sings as if they’re grinding their teeth down to the nerve; the track shudders and startles at every turn, desolate synths circling the arrangement like vultures above wasteland. Despite this, “What They Call Us” is not the sound of defeat. It’s a defiant snarl in the face of circumstance: “I will stay if I dare.” –Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Fever Ray, “What They Call Us”

61.

Amber Mark: “What It Is”

Uncertainty can gnaw at your psyche, boxing out every other thought. But Amber Mark imbues the troubling feeling with celestial wonder on “What It Is,” looking to a higher power to answer her questions following a failed love. The neat and simmering groove moves in lockstep underneath the R&B singer’s vocals, which mix her patient tone with agile vocal runs and gasping harmonies. Adrift in a stream of milky synths, she shows how powerful it is to be lost. –Brandon Callender

Listen: Amber Mark, “What It Is”

60.

Plains: “Problem With It”

The charm of Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson’s album is how they seamlessly combine their simpatico strengths—the plainspoken emotiveness, the pretty melodies, the diaristic attention to experiences big and small—into easy-breezy country-pop that wouldn’t sound out of place on Nashville radio. “Problem With It” is the shining jewel from their debut LP as Plains, an airy travelogue of deep feelings about wanderlust and wack lovers that glides by like a fast car on an empty interstate. And the harmonies! There’s true joy in their vocal communion, most striking when the instruments drop out and it’s just the two of them singing, finding their peace and place in the world within each other’s presence. –Jeremy Gordon

Listen: Plains, “Problem With It”

59.

Alabaster DePlume: “Don’t Forget You’re Precious”

The Mancunian saxophonist and spoken-word artist Alabaster DePlume meanders through the stuff stuck in his mind: an ex’s email address, a train transfer, assorted strings of identifying digits. Despite these thoughts—or even deeper, more abstracted aches—he delivers a serene reminder of what matters most. “They can’t use us on one another if we don’t forget we’re precious,” he offers. Against airy background vocals and fluttering strings, DePlume’s comforting reassurance feels like a secular blessing, a private rallying point away from life’s greedy clamor. –Allison Hussey

Listen: Alabaster DePlume, “Don’t Forget You’re Precious”

58.

Kehlani: “melt”

Kehlani’s desire for intimacy is insatiable, even as they tangle with their lover in bed. Over Happy Perez and Pop Wansel’s blissful backbeat, Kehlani meticulously and melismatically details a fantasy where they share a physical form with their partner, with only Kehlani’s tattoos differentiating them. In an era flush with sapphic love songs, “melt” stands out for both its grandiose string arrangement and its specificity, finding the most happiness in quiet moments. –Hannah Jocelyn

Listen: Kehlani, “melt”

57.

Camp Cope: “Running With the Hurricane”

Fiona Apple spread like strawberries and climbed like peas and beans; Camp Cope run with the hurricane, setting aside the heavy balloon of depression and obsessive self-loathing to keep pace with the forces that might otherwise knock them flat. There’s some Springsteen-y heroism in their full-pelt charge towards daylight—“Look out boys/I’m on fire and I’m not going out,” Georgia Maq announces—but the Australian trio is mostly guided by their country-punk foremothers: the Chicks, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Neko Case. The song rattles along in a lovely cacophony of jangling piano, lunging bass, and a baton-swap of choruses, like some junker with sturdy suspension and everything else nailed down just barely enough to make your escape. –Laura Snapes

Listen: Camp Cope, “Running With the Hurricane”

Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia

56.

Beyoncé: “Break My Soul”

“Break My Soul” demands its listeners leave all psychic weight at the door. “Release the stress!” a Big Freedia sample commands inside an Earth-shaking house pulse, as Beyoncé presides over the dancefloor like she just rode in on the back of a hologram horse. Bey gives a fully embodied performance that invites the rest of us to luxuriate inside our own bodies—to spit out the toxins and savor the pleasure that floods in once they’re gone. Unleashed at the height of summer, “Break My Soul” ushered in a sorely needed season of abandon and relief, serving as balm and catalyst at the same time. –Sasha Geffen

Listen: Beyoncé, “Break My Soul”

55.

Black Country, New Road: “Basketball Shoes”

It’s impossible to know precisely how many songs have been written about Charli XCX wet dreams, but you could reasonably assume only one is a 12-minute chamber-rock requiem whose reference to Concord Air Jordans bore a concept record about the Concorde jet disaster. “Basketball Shoes” erupts with the essentials of Black Country, New Road: frenetic tempo changes, bright arpeggiation, violin, saxophone, glockenspiel, distortion, screaming, doorbell chimes. Concluding more than their album Ants From Up There, the finale bids adieu to singer Isaac Wood, who left the band days before its release. –Hannah Seidlitz

Listen: Black Country, New Road, “Basketball Shoes”

54.

DJ Python: “Angel”

Reggaeton always seems to figure into discussions of DJ Python’s music—the New York-based producer did previously coin the term “deep reggaeton” to describe his sound—but while “Angel,” the lead track from his Club Sentimientos Vol. 2 EP, is built atop a loosely Caribbean shuffle, the sprawling tune is better suited to an afternoon of lounging by the pool than a sweaty night of perreo. Gliding across nearly 11 minutes of plush textures and dreamily plinking tones, the song has a hypnotic, almost womb-like allure, its patient pulse exuding a luxurious (but never ostentatious) sense of cool. –Shawn Reynaldo

Listen: DJ Python, “Angel”

53.

FKA twigs: “honda” [ft. Pa Salieu]

Where FKA twigs’ 2019 album MAGDALENE peeled back the skin of a visceral pain, her 2022 mixtape CAPRISONGS rediscovered a sense of somatic joy. twigs leans all the way into that physicality on “honda,” a dubby duet with the English artist Pa Salieu. Over a bone-deep bassline, Salieu and twigs’ voices twist around one another, mirroring the tangled, dancing limbs they sing about. At first listen, “honda” is all sensual chemistry, felt across a dancefloor, or speeding down the highway. But Salieu’s breezy monologue about looking at himself in the mirror frames the song in a different light: It’s also about those moments you feel entirely in your own body, reclaiming your “one-of-a-kind” self. –Aimee Cliff

Listen: FKA twigs, “honda” [ft. Pa Salieu]

52.

Fontaines D.C.: “Jackie Down the Line”

The lead single from Fontaines D.C.’s Skinty Fia is seductively dark, with a menacing bassline, gnarly ’90s post-punk guitar skeins, and a lyric that masquerades as a toxic-boyfriend confession. Like much of the album, “Jackie Down the Line” reveals itself with unpacking as a meditation on Irish identity: in this case, an examination of the way that cultural marginalization can breed self-hate and self-fulfilling prophecy. Grian Chatten’s Dublin brogue, flecked with the soulful British surliness of Mark E. Smith and Noel Gallagher, complicated things further. So did the song’s video premiere, brilliantly staged for the Tonight Show in a deserted theater for a roving camera that seemed unable to get a fix on the singer—much like the singer himself. –Will Hermes

Listen: Fontaines D.C., “Jackie Down the Line”

Text / Ministry of Sound

51.

KH: “Looking at Your Pager”

Kieran Hebden’s flair for tunes that intersect credibility and popularity already put him in a lofty position, but “Looking at Your Pager” proved another beast entirely. With fangs added to 3LW’s kiss-off and those signature pearlescent Four Tet chimes dashed against a pair of impudent basslines—like fine snow gracing an enormous, stinking cement mixer in mid-churn—2021’s fervently sought track ID became 2022’s great dancefloor unifier: It runs with the current UK vogue for growling mechanical steppers while offering sanctuary to nomads wandering America’s post-EDM plains in search of a new thrill. Although “Pager” gifted countless DJs a get-out-of-jail card this summer, they should be on red alert. Hebden’s ear for a monster hit is only getting stronger. –Gabriel Szatan

Listen: KH, “Looking at Your Pager”

50.

Danger Mouse / Black Thought: “Belize” [ft. MF DOOM]

MF DOOM’s appearance on Cheat Codes represents a bit of unfinished business: Danger Mouse, who originally produced DOOM’s long-vaulted verse, had long wanted the Roots’ Black Thought for the track. What could’ve been an autumnal team-up between two all-time rap technicians became, with DOOM’s passing in 2020, a melancholic meeting across the veil. The Villain’s sardonic epitaph (“They knew he was a negro/So no need to show faces”) draws as much blood as the world’s longest Erik Estrada joke, while Black Thought’s polished yet playful verse is a tribute to the sly anarchy DOOM could elicit, whether or not he was in the room. –Brad Shoup

Listen: Danger Mouse / Black Thought, “Belize” [ft. MF DOOM]

49.

Jessie Ware: “Free Yourself”

The beloved British singer responsible for one of the pandemic’s premiere pop albums teamed up with studio whizz Stuart Price and returned this summer with another ode to love and dancing. “Free Yourself” takes Ware’s blend of ’70s disco and ’80s boogie and shimmies it ecstatically into the ’90s—jacking acid house drum fills, flamboyant male backup singers, gospel piano—without losing an ounce of charm. And when, this fall, she finally sang it live in front of a New York crowd pitched to Judy-at-Carnegie-Hall pandemonium? It became a new classic. –Jesse Dorris

Listen: Jessie Ware, “Free Yourself”

48.

Ravyn Lenae: “Light Me Up”

“Light Me Up” is about the soft hope of a blossoming romance. The Steve Lacy-produced song begins with uncertainty, pacing in circles over tranquil bass guitar and kicks that pulse like a slowed heart. Lenae’s tender vocal runs descend like creek water as she describes the exhilaration of trying on someone new: “No coming down, I love the view.” The song’s private intensity makes it fit for a closed-doors affair in a candle-lit room, but Lenae’s weightless voice and quiet vulnerability makes it impossible not to want to listen in. –Jane Bua

Listen: Ravyn Lenae, “Light Me Up”

47.

Maren Morris: “Circles Around This Town”

Maren Morris does the impossible: She makes driving in Nashville sound fun. A sly bit of memoir set to music, the first single from Humble Quest recalls the singer’s earliest days as a Tennessee transplant, driving her “Montero with the AC busted” through traffic to look for a record deal and maybe find a little inspiration on the radio. It’s been a decade since she arrived in town, but she might as well be singing about what she did last weekend. She arrived in Nashville hungry. Several years and many miles later, she still is. –Stephen Deusner

Listen: Maren Morris, “Circles Around This Town”

46.

Drake: “Sticky”

On an album that often sounds like he’s searching for something (novelty, if you’re being generous; relevance if you’re not), “Sticky” is where Drake issues his demands: for more guests at the Met Gala, for police escorts, for a kiss, requested in curling French-Canadian. Like the best Drake songs, “Sticky” pressure-cooks his brashest impulses until they congeal into something tender. The club closes; the neon lights sputter out, and “it’s you alone with your regrets.” The stickiest situations are always the ones that trap you in your own thoughts. –Dani Blum

Listen: Drake, “Sticky”

45.

Lucrecia Dalt: “El Galatzó”

Lucrecia Dalt’s forceful whisper seems to lightly kiss the microphone, capturing the uncomfortable intimacy of another’s breath against your ear. A flute swirls in the stereo mix, and by the third minute of “El Galatzó,” the strings swell into a crescendo and her plaintive speech gives way to a soulful chorus of spirits. This is, of course, the alien Preta, the protagonist of her latest album ¡Ay!, who arrives flush with newly realized erotic power, rejecting the illusion of linear time. It’s a blast of sci-fi folklore, with an anti-colonial POV. The songs and stories of our ancestors aren’t relegated to the past; that kind of temporality, Dalt suggests, is merely a misconception of the unevolved. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Lucrecia Dalt, “El Galatzó”

44.

Taylor Swift: “Anti-Hero”

Sometimes the world really does revolve around Taylor Swift: Is there any other artist who could force urgency into the federal investigation of a music industry monopoly just by going on tour? With “Anti-Hero,” Taylor mirrors an entire lifetime of being a coy main character—the bleacher seat-warmer, the “insane” jealous ex, the doomed princess—with one addictive, charming declaration of self-awareness. Her vocal theatrics are spiked with the very millennial instinct to disguise confidence with self-deprecation, using the tools of a generation obsessed with self-reflection to make one of the best pop songs of the year. –Puja Patel

Listen: Taylor Swift, “Anti-Hero”

604 / Schoolboy / Interscope

43.

Carly Rae Jepsen: “Western Wind”

A “jubilation” conjures such a specific kind of party—maybe a little Catholic, maybe a little royal, something grand and elegant with streamers, champagne, castles. When Carly Rae Jepsen sings the word “jubilation” on “Western Wind”—a midtempo Live, Laugh, Love pop song produced by Rostam from Jepsen’s album *The Loneliest Time—*it’s about a memory of her clearing aside all the furniture in her living room to make a space to sing and dance with her family. It’s so simple, so delightful, so inviting. The sneakily well-built song bubbles along softly, like a sleepy little “Freedom! ’90,” a road trip jam that can silence everyone in the car as Jepsen sings this question: “Do you feel home from all directions?” Not sure what it means, but like the best songs, the answer when you’re listening is an unequivocal yes. –Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Western Wind”

42.

MJ Lenderman: “Tastes Just Like It Costs”

When MJ Lenderman’s guitar gently weeps, his songwriting keeps a stiff upper lip. Like everything on the indie rocker’s breakthrough album Boat Songs, “Tastes Just Like It Costs” contrasts the looseness of his playing—a saggy opening riff reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age, some curdled Dinosaur Jr. soloing—with the extreme economy of his lyrics. In a handful of four- and five-line verses, he sketches a scene appropriate for a Portlandia sketch, or maybe a horror film: an upscale butcher shop, a “dumb hat,” a sourceless scream. “Mm, honey/It tastes just like it costs,” he drawls over glowing charcoal fuzz, savoring the sweetness of the ambiguity. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: MJ Lenderman, “Tastes Just Like It Costs”

41.

Charlotte Adigéry / Bolis Pupul: “It Hit Me”

On the Belgian electropop duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul’s debut LP, Topical Dancer, “It Hit Me” pierces through their theatrical scrim. Tackling the fraught subject of sexual spectacle—from the grimy discomfort of being leered at for the first time to the inane seduction techniques found in women’s magazines—“It Hit Me” guides us through the funhouse mirror of navigating one’s sexuality. The chorus underscores the weight of Adigéry and Pupul’s realizations, letting us feel the gut punch with them—and inviting us to dance through it all. –Sue Park

Listen: Charlotte Adigéry / Bolis Pupul, “It Hit Me”

40.

Yaya Bey: “keisha”

“keisha” is a breakup anthem made for a specific type of bad bitch: an independent woman who puts up with annoying “Where my hug at?” dudes, but still just wants to be loved and madly desired. Yaya Bey knows her audience is foul-mouthed, slightly toxic, lovestruck, and aroused by good, flirty conversation, so she adopts a feathery guitar riff that floats through the song. But when she sings the indelible chorus—“Yeah the pussy so, so good/And you still don’t love me”—it’s comedy and tragedy all rolled into one. –Tarisai Ngangura

Listen: Yaya Bey, “keisha”

1501 Certified Entertainment / 300 Entertainment

39.

Megan Thee Stallion: “Plan B”

The high road is unsatisfying and often boring. Mud-slinging reveals something closer to the truth, and on “Plan B,” the truth sets the Houston Hottie free: “Fuck you, still can’t believe I used to trust you/The only accolade you ever made is that I fucked you.” Bolstered by a Jodeci sample, Meg spits with equal parts force and charisma, confronting not just the anger of a bad relationship but also the pain. Just ’cause you’re a bad bitch doesn’t mean you can’t have your feelings hurt. –Jessica Kariisa

Listen: Megan Thee Stallion, “Plan B”

38.

Angel Olsen: “Big Time”

Even the brightest-burning romances are made up of quiet moments. With “Big Time,” Angel Olsen gives listeners a glimpse into that kind of intimacy: She and her partner Beau Thibodeaux, who co-wrote the song, drink coffee, lay in the tall grass, and walk down to the lake, singing Chris de Burgh’s “The Lady in Red.” Olsen’s brassy, stuck-out-of-time voice and the breezy, country-inspired arrangement imbue those details with the gleam of universal truth. The sweetly delivered line “I’m loving you big time” is a beacon in Olsen’s hands. Its disarming simplicity cracks open her incandescent partnership, letting its light pour out all over everything. –Brad Sanders

Listen: Angel Olsen, “Big Time”

37.

Sudan Archives: “Home Maker”

With the world coming back outside again, “Home Maker” shows that staying in the crib can be just as worthwhile. Sudan Archives sidesteps the opaque nature of some of her previous work for a straight-ahead introvert’s anthem. “I cry when I’m alone,” she coos atop propulsive drums and looping handclaps. “All these people don’t know/That I deal with all of these doubts.” Yet the song doesn’t wallow in sadness; it is empowered, therapeutic, and honest. –Marcus J. Moore

Listen: Sudan Archives, “Home Maker”

36.

yeule: “Bites on My Neck”

Part hyperpop cyborg, part suffering bedroom songwriter, yeule deals in emo-tinged laments that conceal deep, impossible desires: to be numb and euphoric at once; to be touched without a body. The Singaporean musician floats between dissociative sing-speak and lullaby coos on “Bites on My Neck,” corralling meteor-shower synths and pugilistic kick drums to offer a fresh perspective on pleasure-centric dance pop. Co-written and produced with Danny L Harle and Mura Masa, the track owes as much to M83’s starbound symphonies and Laurie Anderson’s deadpan alienation as to post-PC Music clubland. Yeule hijacks that garish pop paradigm in service of more vaporous emotions, funneling a post-breakup identity crisis into an immaterial rush. –Jazz Monroe

Listen: yeule, “Bites on My Neck”

35.

Special Interest: “Midnight Legend” [ft. Mykki Blanco]

When the drugs have run dry and you’re about to ditch the club, “Midnight Legend” will call you back. You hear those bouncing ’90s house keys, the synthetic snares that clack like costume jewelry on a cheap bartop. Special Interest vocalist Alli Logout pulls double duty: They are your disco deity, your rave therapist. “They all pine for you/Built you to destroy you,” Logout belts, before partner-in-crime Mykki Blanco slides in with a brassy verse. “Daddy pay the bill but I don’t fuck him,” Blanco snaps over a four-on-the-floor pulse. The divas have arrived—dancefloor salvation. –Madison Bloom

Listen: Special Interest: “Midnight Legend” [ft. Mykki Blanco]

34.

Grace Ives: “Shelly”

Grace Ives’ Janky Star springs to life like a miniature jukebox of sputtering New York love songs, each delectable hook blaring through with a raggedy kind of charm. Where most of the album channels the raunchy electro-pop of the aughts, “Shelly” calls out the oldies: its power poppy, guitar-chugging strut feels more of a piece with Pulp or Rick Springfield. Ives cheekily lusts after a woman who reminds her of the titular Twin Peaks character, breathily proclaiming, “I wanna 1-2-3-4-5 her.” It’s as winking as it is sweetly sincere, like a parody of all those unrequited-love karaoke classics that’s so positively giddy it ends up becoming the real thing. –Sam Goldner

Listen: Grace Ives, “Shelly”

33.

Big Thief: “Spud Infinity”

What exactly is the connection between potatoes and human existence? Who knows. But the absurd central metaphor in Big Thief’s “Spud Infinity” makes it both the band's homeliest song and possibly their most beautiful, escaping like a big, snorty laugh from their murmuring double album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. The mouth harp and see-sawing fiddle are the perfect accompaniment to Adrianne Lenker’s outrageously playful lyrics, rhyming “finish” with “potato knish” in a flourish that would make John Prine crack a mile-wide grin. –Jayson Greene

Listen: Big Thief, “Spud Infinity”

32.

Chief Keef: “Bitch Where”

Chief Keef is at an emotional crossroads. The Chicago native is still as wild and irreverent as ever (“At the gun range, sound checkin’, it sound clear”) but he’s also uncharacteristically grateful to still be alive and creating after a decade in the industry. “Bitch Where” plays these fantastical tonal leaps against a triumphant beat made for a king returning from war, but once the smoke clears, a message from Keef’s grandmother maintains the air of gratitude: “Keep going, baby. Keep going. Granny just love how you move and doing yourself.” –Dylan Green

Listen: Chief Keef, “Bitch Where”

31.

Charli XCX: “Constant Repeat”

There are glimmers of Charli’s cyborg tendencies on Crash standout “Constant Repeat”—the high-pitched blips, the sliced-and-diced vocal outro—but it moves more lightly ​​than the revved-up pop for which she’s become known. Charli is at ease, luxuriating in Jacuzzi-jet synths while delivering a resolute assertion of her worth to someone who let her go. Ostensibly about a breakup, the song becomes all the more potent considering Crash’s meta-narrative about a fed-up pop star dipping out on her major-label overlords. Charli demands stardom on her own terms; the mainstream machine can take it or leave it. –Olivia Horn

Listen: Charli XCX, “Constant Repeat”

30.

Ice Spice: “Munch (Feelin’ U)”

Merriam-Webster defines “munch” as a verb that means “to eat with a chewing action.” Which is wrong. Or, at least, incomplete. Because according to Ice Spice, the word is a noun that describes a particularly clueless kind of guy—a dummy, a sucker, a simp. “You thought I was feelin’ you?” the Bronx drill rapper eyerolls on one of the year’s most memorable hooks, “That nigga a munch/Nigga a eater he ate it for lunch/Bitch I’m a baddie I get what I want.” Ice Spice grew up idolizing both Cardi B and Erykah Badu, and she balances her brashness with a supremely unbothered delivery, as if she’s been swatting away munches for decades. Centuries, even. Merriam-Webster, it’s time to catch up. –Ryan Dombal

Listen: Ice Spice, “Munch (Feelin’ U)”

29.

Jockstrap: “Greatest Hits”

A song called “Greatest Hits” might seem like hubris, but subversive audacity is encoded into Jockstrap’s DNA. On this highlight of I Love You Jennifer B, the London duo takes the fundamentals of disco—sashaying glamor, sumptuous strings—and laces them with hyperpop mischief. “Imagine I’m Madonna/Imagine I’m the Madonna,” vogues Georgia Ellery, self-actualizing her stardom. In an alternate reality, “Greatest Hits” is soundtracking a scene of eyebrow-raising decadence in Studio 54 at this very moment. In our timeline it’s playing out on less opulent stages, but even the humblest trappings can’t tarnish its sense of unabashed rapture. –Louis Pattison

Listen: Jockstrap, “Greatest Hits”

28.

Soccer Mommy: “Shotgun”

Sophie Allison was put on God’s green Earth to write vivid, melancholy songs. On “Shotgun,” the undulating lead single from Sometimes, Forever, she masters the complicated rush of falling into an unsustainable love, painting a twisted picture of twentysomething romances. “You know I’ll take you as you are/As long as you do me,” she sings over muddy layers of grungy guitar chords produced expertly by Oneohtrix Point Never. “Shotgun” is about doing vulnerable and delusional things in love, knowing they’re just quick fixes, and not giving a damn anyway. –Gio Santiago

Listen: Soccer Mommy, “Shotgun”

27.

Steve Lacy: “Bad Habit”

Steve Lacy is a lovelorn Eeyore on “Bad Habit,” his Gemini Rights anthem for the undecided. He dutifully trods around in his own head, assuaging the guilt of not pursuing a love interest. Still, he allows himself to daydream. In a year that’s felt directionless for many, it’s clear why a song about living in ambiguity would become a No. 1 hit and every TikTok introvert’s soundtrack. More than the wispy pangs of regret or plaintive falsetto, what propels the song is a steady pulse of uncertainty, relatable to anyone who’s ever talked themselves out of following their heart. –Clover Hope

Listen: Steve Lacy, “Bad Habit”

26.

Cate Le Bon: “Moderation”

“Moderation,” a highlight of Cate Le Bon’s Pompeii, is a beguiling elegy to uncertainty. Atop a strutting new wave bassline and lonesome horns, the Welsh musician faces the habits she can’t quite knock, reckoning with guilt and her own good intentions. “Moderation/I can’t have it/I don’t want it/I want to touch it,” she sings, lingering on each word as if to briefly possess its essence. In this strange space between emotions, Le Bon stands transfixed by the unknown. –Quinn Moreland

Listen: Cate Le Bon, “Moderation”

25.

Burna Boy: “Last Last”

Has heartbreak ever sounded so liberating? “Last Last” is Burna Boy’s paean to pain and things that, well, don’t last—his layered vocals soaring freely over lolloping kicks. But played against the charismatic defiance of his drink- and smoke-soaked performance is that shivering riff of Toni Braxton’s “He Wasn’t Man Enough”; it rings like eternal doubt—maybe it was me, not you, after all?—and delivers the tension that triggered the song’s explosion across street parties and beach stages all summer. –Will Pritchard

Listen: Burna Boy, “Last Last”

24.

Daphni: “Cherry”

Daphni’s third album, Cherry, feels like it was bashed out in a few hours, in the best possible way. It’s rave music as garage rock, with a giddy sense of freedom that makes it feels like a breakthrough for the dance-music project of Caribou’s Dan Snaith. Standing astride the record is the title track, composed of a few eccentric but judiciously arranged elements—a frog-chorus of pitch-shifted hi-hats, a simple melody played on a pneumatic chord preset—threaded along a synth loop that sounds like a chain of exploding Pop Rocks. Simply yet counterintuitively constructed, “Cherry” is proof a rave anthem can be patched together out of anything. –Daniel Bromfield

Listen: Daphni, “Cherry”

23.

Weyes Blood: “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”

Natalie Mering transforms a biting moment of interiority—feeling unseen at a party—into a plea for empathy and interconnectivity. She notices the increasing loneliness in herself, then the loneliness in everyone, everywhere: a testament to the fact that we’re all “a part of one big thing.” The song beams with ’70s sonic nostalgia, Mering’s languid voice soaring over soft piano and taut drums. But the sentiments in “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” are hardly backwards-looking. Mering searches for a way forward, embracing mercy as a path to ourselves and each other. –Brady Brickner-Wood

Listen: Weyes Blood, “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”

22.

Two Shell: “home”

Two Shell could really piss you off if their music wasn’t so fantastic. Forget the duo’s inane first interview that self-destructed before you could read it, or their Boiler Room set where they twiddled knobs to a pre-recorded set in goat hats and sunglasses. Forget the passcode-protected hacker website that makes you feel like you have to steal the Declaration of Independence to get in. It all evaporates in the face of a big, phosphorescent floor-filler like “home,” in which pitched-up vocals from a 2016 alt-R&B song emit an irresistible rainbow sheen, texturized by whirring jungle beats and slobbery bubble-popping noises. It’s dippy, synthetic, and blindingly fun, a sure sign that even at closing time your night is on the up. –Cat Zhang

Listen: Two Shell, “home”

21.

Monaleo: “We Not Humping (Remix)” [ft. Flo Milli]

When pop-culture feminism goes full-throttle on misandry, the Miami bass-inflected “We Not Humping (Remix)” will be the movement’s rallying song. Equally bratty and lacerating, Monaleo and Flo Milli take turns using the alpha-male ego like a punching bag. Sparing no feelings, these Southern women giggle at erectile dysfunction, berating those who can only last for the duration of a TikTok video, and shaming the ones who failed Eater 101 in a playground-taunt delivery. Don’t worry, they just might let you hang—just come with your jaw loose and most importantly keep your pants zipped. –Heven Haile

Listen: Monaleo, “We Not Humping (Remix)” [ft. Flo Milli]

20.

Caroline Polachek: “Billions”

Caroline Polachek dives headfirst into the twists and turns of a mutually obliterative infatuation. She breathily gasps about “sexting sonnets” and “working the angles,” before plunging down an octave to seethe “headless angel / body upgraded / but it's dead on arrival.” And then a sharp turn: She hands off the final chorus to a British children's choir, whose voices sound so weightless they could be simulated. “I never felt so close to you,” they sing, modeling what all the best pop music does: taking a specific situation between a particular I and a particular you and inviting everyone else in the world to fill it with their own dreams and nightmares. –Sasha Geffen

Listen: Caroline Polachek, “Billions”

19.

Beth Orton: “Friday Night”

Beth Orton’s astonishing “Friday Night” captures the moment when a disarrayed consciousness finally arranges itself into a shape that makes sense. The haunted background vocals and vaporous synths suggest the time-travel of memory as much as the lyric about Proust’s madeleine, but Orton has no desire to live in the past. Though she’s a little unsteady, hobbling along to the tumbling beat of the drum, she’d rather move forward. As “Friday Night” unfolds, Orton sounds both weary and sneakily energized, ready to discover what’s next. –Mark Richardson

Listen: Beth Orton, “Friday Night”

18.

Björk: “Ancestress”

Björk wrote “Ancestress,” a long and stirring highlight from Fossora, in the wake of her mother’s death. She penned pages of words before whittling them down and enlisting her son, Sindri Eldon, to harmonize. In the moments they sing together, Björk and Eldon sketch out a lifecycle, each honoring their own matriarch. Björk pays tribute to her mother’s dyslexia—an “idiosyncratic sense of rhythm” and the “ultimate free form.” But she doesn’t just sing about it: She echos it with musical structure, shoving aside delicate chimes and dispatching atonal bells and jagged percussion. “Ancestress” is not only a song about Björk’s mother; it is her mother transposed into song. –Madison Bloom

Listen: Björk, “Ancestress”

17.

Nilüfer Yanya: “Midnight Sun”

Play a round of Heardle with “Midnight Sun” and you might easily guess an In Rainbows song. Nilüfer Yanya translates Radiohead’s signature elements—minor-key trickery, layered guitar loops, cryptic lyrics punctuated with anxiety—into a heavily redacted diary entry. From the sharp intake of a drum roll that opens the song to the scuzzy, major-key blowout that offers a long-awaited catharsis, “Midnight Sun” uses rock’s ominous side to ward off an unidentified threat. Consider it a talisman for a new decade of misinformation, paranoia, and emotional spiraling. –Nina Corcoran

Listen: Nilüfer Yanya, “Midnight Sun”

pgLang / Top Dawg Entertainment / Aftermath / Interscope

16.

Kendrick Lamar: “The Heart Part 5”

One of the worst strains of discourse in the field of Kendrickology is the idea that Kendrick Lamar never asked to be considered a spokesperson for the affairs of Black America, that he’s merely a savant that stumbled into a spotlight he’s not suited for, and never wanted. What an insult. “The Heart Part 5” is a three-hundred-and-thirty-two-second-long declaration of Kendrick’s unabashed desire for the pulpit, contending with whether the world no longer has use for his earnestness, and whether he should be ashamed to indulge his ambitions to moral superheroics. That’s actually exactly what the world wants, and it’s what Kendrick wants, too. –Adlan Jackson

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, “The Heart Part 5”

15.

Rachika Nayar: “Heaven Come Crashing” [ft. Maria BC]

Though Rachika Nayar’s previous works of gossamer ambient play along a rich spectrum of feeling, they often expressed their intensity softly. The first half of the Brooklyn guitarist-composer’s “Heaven Come Crashing” glides along in a familiar quietude, with clusters of vocals from fellow guitarist Maria BC. When it abruptly drops into a motorway-paced drum’n’bass section, the catharsis is surprising but earned, like a natural discharge of energy. Amid all the noise and rhythm, the familiar sound of a processed guitar becomes something new and majestic. –Zhenzhen Yu

Listen: Rachika Nayar, “Heaven Come Crashing” [ft. Maria BC]

14.

Pharrell: “Cash In Cash Out” [ft. 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator]

“Cash In Cash Out” sounds like Pharrell heard a Gen-Zer refer to him as “the Minions song guy” and took it personally. Returning to a grittier sound after his work on Pusha-T’s It’s Almost Dry, he sought out two “ravenous wolves”—Tyler the Creator and 21 Savage—to attack extraterrestrial 808s and militant snares. Both rappers trade braggadocious bars, neither relegated to feature status—21 surfing the high-tempo beat while Tyler double-dutches with an increasingly frenetic flow culminating in his conclusive “Woof!” –Heven Haile

Listen: Pharrell, “Cash In Cash Out” [ft. 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator]

13.

The 1975: “Part of the Band”

“Part of the Band” is both the thesis and the outlier of the 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language. Its patient orchestral folk and tongue-twisting one-liners about “vaccinista tote bag chic baristas” stand apart from the bittersweet synth-pop found elsewhere on the album. The song’s vulnerability feels distinct in its precision, too. As frontman Matty Healy sings of exactly how long it’s been since he last used heroin, down to the minute, toward the end of the track, the production swells to a crescendo, pushing him further ahead. –Matthew Strauss

Listen: The 1975, “Part of the Band”

12.

Aldous Harding: “Fever”

Nobody darts around the edges of narrative and inscrutability quite like the folk-pop enigma Aldous Harding. On “Fever,” the New Zealand singer deals out impressionistic morsels of an 11-day love affair in a faraway city, shouting the first word of each measure like a schoolteacher calling roll. “Fever” may seem like a straightforward tale by Harding’s cryptic standards, but from the lopsided piano groove that anchors the tune to the dada wisdom that “one will fry if the other’s connected,” everything remains pleasantly askew. –Zach Schonfeld

Listen: Aldous Harding, “Fever”

11.

Ethel Cain: “American Teenager”

Ethel Cain approaches her music as a sound designer as much as a songwriter, eschewing conventional structure for marginal vibrations and layered sensations, which makes an arena-ready pop anthem like “American Teenager” something of a revelation. On a lost highway turnoff somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Brandon Flowers, Ethel rides a sepia-tinged carousel of all-American imagery: tears under the bleachers, wasted nights gone wrong, and forlorn prayers to Jesus. While her songs are frequently extended epics, somewhere between slowcore and chopped & screwed choral music, “American Teenager” is immediate and succinct, but not any less careful in its construction. –Nadine Smith

Listen: Ethel Cain, “American Teenager”

10.

Hikaru Utada: “Somewhere Near Marseilles”

Hikaru Utada reinvented themselves on their eighth album, BADモード, dialing from J-pop toward sleek, mellow dance music. Featuring co-production from Floating Points’ Sam Shepherd, the LP’s jet-setting, showstopping finale frames a Mediterranean tryst in finger snaps and rubbery synths. It’s a glamorous setup for breathless intimacy: “Maybe I’m afraid of love/Say I’m not the only one,” they murmur as the song builds toward a blissed-out dance breakdown. Spiked with unfettered yearning, “Somewhere Near Marseilles” makes falling hard and fast sound like its own euphoric form of escape. –Eric Torres

Listen: Hikaru Utada, “Somewhere Near Marseilles”

9.

Bad Bunny: “Tití Me Preguntó”

Bad Bunny regards seductive mischief as inextricable from his sensitive disposition: This is how he lets us know he’s complex. The arrangement reflects Bunny’s amiable disregard for monogamy. Producer MAG treats Bunny’s first solo stab at dembow like a coming-out party, lavishing him with keyboard swirls, sampled camera effects, a beat switch-up in the outro, and, terrifyingly, his aunt to shake her finger at her nephew. But Tití doesn’t have to ask for details—Benito will tell her. He giggles at his own admissions, and of course, like cads before him, admits that what he really wants is… love. –Alfred Soto

Listen: Bad Bunny, “Tití Me Preguntó”

8.

Alan Braxe / DJ Falcon: “Step by Step” [ft. Panda Bear]

French house kingpins Alan Braxe and DJ Falcon made their long-awaited return on “Step by Step,” rolling out gentle waves of modular synths that sound like they come from an old AM radio. Panda Bear gives the duo’s subtle glow a narrative framework, singing about the aftermath of an idyllic past. But “Step by Step” is really about moving forward: The synths suddenly come alive, acoustic drums breathe momentum into the song’s sails, and Panda Bear—multi-tracked into an elated choir, and delivering the crown jewel of his already laudable 2022 discography—becomes a chorus of trusted advisors whose collective force, and copious repetitions, transform an old self-help chestnut into a life-changing belief system. –Evan Minsker

Listen: Alan Braxe / DJ Falcon, “Step by Step” [ft. Panda Bear]

7.

Rosalía: “SAOKO”

Pressing play on “SAOKO” feels like opening a matchbox to find a blaze already lit inside. It’s the crackling, compact powerhouse that realizes Rosalía’s stated desire to hear something she’s never heard before. In just over two minutes, she darts through a Wisin and Daddy Yankee interpolation, digital distortion, and organic, jazzy interludes while laying bars harder than the diamonds she affixed to her teeth this year. “Yo me transformo”—“I transform myself”—is her refrain throughout, and a mission statement for how she synthesizes cross-cultural influences into a totalizing, transcendent vision of pop. –Olivia Horn

Listen: Rosalía, “SAOKO”

6.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” [ft. Perfume Genius]

Time may have tamed their more volatile inclinations, but Yeah Yeah Yeahs is still for the kids: whether in the context of literal parenthood, the younger artists for whom their influence abounds, or the emerging generation at the heart of this quietly epic song. On the cinematic lead single from their first album in eight years, Yeah Yeah Yeahs obliquely trace the contours of our consequential historical moment, of what the young will inherit: “Cowards, here’s the sun/So bow your heads.” Its atmosphere conjures a world slowly turning, putting rage into a cool, cutting stare. –Jenn Pelly

Listen: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” [ft. Perfume Genius]

Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia

5.

Beyoncé: “Alien Superstar”

At least now we’ll be prepared if a UFO ever touches down in the club. “Alien Superstar” is a new-gen ballroom staple with a synth-drenched hook beamed down from a higher plane. Beyoncé has never lacked for confidence, but over Prince-ly funk paired with interstellar electronic flourishes, her assertions about being a “masterpiece, genius” with a “drip intravenous” feel particularly justified. Add to the audaciousness a grouping of samples that, were it not for the House of Yoncé’s copious resources, would surely never have been assembled under one roof: Dancefloor staples Foremost Poets and Peter Rauhofer meet a Right Said Fred interpolation that culminates in an outro by Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the National Black Theater. The result is 20-plus credits on a track that both soars and swaggers, a new bar set by a star always game to raise it. –Emma Carmichael

Listen: Beyoncé, “Alien Superstar”

4.

Alex G: “Runner”

Alex G writes songs because, he says, he doesn’t have the “technical skill” for fiction. Probably you would not get a book deal on this premise: “Runner” might be a song about a dog, but it’s also a song about dog spelled backward. “I have done a couple bad things,” he howls, the tortured Judas cry of that most Easter bunnies-and-puppies of Alex G albums, God Save the Animals. “Judge me for what I do,” he reminds us, and as is true of many spiritual texts, the detail is kind of inscrutable while the story comes alive in sound: creeping-ivy melodies, spooky beatboxing, that primal scream. The scream leaves the human realm, meets the animal, approaches the perfect love to which we now aspire in the form of perfect two-and-a-half-minute pop songs. Alex G, like the dog who catches the car, keeps running. –Anna Gaca

Listen: Alex G, “Runner”

BLAC NOIZE! / Campsouth Records

3.

Glorilla / Hitkidd: “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)”

Landing like a crunkafied version of Trina’s “Single Again” but with a rowdy Lil Phat on the chorus, Glorilla’s “F.N.F.” is a flashy relationship-status update that makes a breakup feel like a riot. Instead of solitary nights spent crying over a tub of ice cream, Glo goes looking for debauchery with her home girls, leading the charge into the streets with an invigorating “Let’s goooo!!!!” Flanked by her bad bitch army, she stomps over a thunderous HitKidd beat and has the last laugh over an ex who wasted her time: “Life's great, pussy still good/Still eating cake, wishing that a bitch would.” Don’t even try texting: Glorilla’s too busy twerking at intersections, hanging out car windows, and making the world know she’s free. –Heven Haile

Listen: Glorilla / Hitkidd, “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)”

2.

Destroyer: “June”

“Speaking of lifelike, this is what life’s like,” Dan Bejar declares midway through “June,” a gloriously surreal destination following three decades of journeying into the heart of his subconscious. The Canadian songwriter’s spoken-word vocals are processed to sound like a montage of various Dan Bejars complimenting and contradicting one another, musing on art and existence or cracking an “I barely know her!” joke while pondering the meaning of love. The onslaught of non sequiturs is chopped and layered against wafting disco, like the soundtrack to a mirrorball head-trip sequence in the Hollywood adaptation of his life. If we’re to take him at his word, this really is what life is like—alternately gliding in ecstasy and waging war on each passing thought, all while still making time for the everyday absurdity that falls in between. A crown jewel of one of indie rock’s most ambitious songbooks, “June” found its home in a world that seems as absurd, doomed, and oddly romantic as Bejar has always seen it. –Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Destroyer, “June”

Polyvinyl / Transgressive

1.

Alvvays: “Belinda Says”

Alvvays frontwoman Molly Rankin recently cited the Canadian short story master Alice Munro as an influence, noting the way the writer’s work can “knock the wind out of you.” Rankin and her band offer their own bracing wallop with “Belinda Says,” a heartbreaking sketch of an unexpected pregnancy that’s also a modern power-pop classic. She only needs one line to render vivid scenes: a warm vodka cooler chugged behind a hockey rink, a tense phone call with a would-be father, a forlorn move to the countryside soundtracked by Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.” Like a heroine in one of Munro’s timeless stories, the narrator’s life is altered forever by a single choice of impossible magnitude.

The song’s bittersweet, sighing melody, one that could easily be repurposed within an antique music box, is magnified by production that weaponizes shoegaze signifiers in service of the narrative. Guitars smother like wet wool and shrieking seagulls fly over the coast; there's an overwhelming heightening of stakes, like your heart is being squeezed by a trash compactor. As Rankin soars into a final high note, it might feel like you’re leaving with a whiff of hope—but the solo that takes you home is messy, discordant, a little confused. It’s an appropriate finale for a song about the moments in people’s lives that defy clear articulation, when your only choice is surrender to a swirling maelstrom of emotion. –Jamieson Cox

Listen: Alvvays, “Belinda Says”

Sent from my iPhone

[inmysoberera]

day 6

hey nonexistent friends.

so i'm on day 6 AF. which means alcohol free even though my brain says "as fuck" every time. and tbh i'm feeling pretty good at this point. my working saturday situation worked great for not drinking last night. also the heineken 0.0 is a god send, feels looks tastes the same. and since there's no alcohol i end up drinking like two and a half of them and then being like "ok i'm gonna take a shower and read a hundred pages and go to bed." yeah. seriously.

tonight i set it up so we're going to see a movie at 6 pm, which means we won't get out till 9 pm. which means i'll be past the "i should get drunk" danger zone. that's the hope. and if i'm all hopped up when i get home i'll have some NA beers and a little bit of nicotine and play pokemon and then i should be fine like i've been the rest of this week. the big struggle is gonna be TOMORROW night, after i've been not hungover and doing whatever i want all day long. i am GOING to want to drink. 100%. this is when my NEW ELLIPTICAL is going to come in so handy. j loaned me the money so i could get it asap, although i wish it was like. it would be there when i get home tonight. i just need a way to do some hard ass cardio whenever i feel the urge to drink because i KNOW that works. also when i'm having anxiety. and i can't just go outside and run cuz my body sucks, also it's dark when i get home.

oh!!!! also i slept amazing. like. no dreams. nothing. just to sleep and then woke up. super weird. apparently alcohol messes up your rem cycle even when you aren't actively drinking and since i haven't had alcohol in like a week my rem is coming back? idk that's what my app said. all i know is i didn't have any bad dreams. or any dreams. it was amazing.

kbye

[nekogamipuck]

I reincarnated as a praying mantis AND I’m getting gay married?!

—————————————————————————

Hm? What’s this…I’m pretty sure I died…everything looks so big, are these trees? Wait…it’s grass. Since when was grass this big? My arms…why are they green…and spiky?? Wait, don’t tell me…did I? DID I REINCARNATE AS A BUG?!

“No way! Reincarnation is real?! And out of all things I could have reincarnated as, WHY AM I A BUG?! Ah well…it’s happened. I guess first matter of business is figuring out what bug am I. Hm, I can see a house, let’s go look in the window” The past human now insect hops over the field of grass, onto to flowerpot and finally on the window. The fiend is astounded by his new form, a praying mantis!

“Cool! I’m a praying mantis! Guess that means I have to eat other insects, I also have to find a mate, have children and probably die again. I wonder what I’ll reincarnate into next” Now happy, he wonders around, living his life eating bugs that he finds appetising.

Life as a praying mantis is simple unlike human life, in a mantis life they only eat, drink and mate. But just like any animal, the life of an insect is not an easy one, life could end abruptly just by an attack of another predator, food can be hard to come by, it’s all survival to the fittest. Despite knowing this, our mantis friend continues to venture in a different kind of existence, one that the average human does not understand.

Our true story begins as our nimble mantis journeys through a garden where there a many live insects. Rubbing his hands together, he decides on what his next meal would be. Perhaps a nice crunchy cricket, or maybe a nice juicy caterpillar. He settles for the caterpillar on the leaf near the house as his appetite is craving something akin to chicken. Camouflaging as one of the stems, he approaches the prey slowly, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The caterpillar was chewing on an elliptical leaf, backside facing the mantis. Finally it was time for him to strike, he lunges his two claws at the caterpillar, gripping the creature and eats it head first. A fine meal for the guy.

Suddenly, a cry can be heard. It is the crying of a human child. The sight of our fiend eating it’s meal has cause fear within the child. It was not his intention to make himself seem intimidating to a child, but it’s what he’s supposed to do in order to survive. Unfortunately, his mealtime was now a loud one as the child kept crying in front of him. Would be nice if the child ran away instead, crying won’t stop our guy from chowing down.

“What’s wrong dear” the mother finally comes to pick up the child, she had dark circles around her eyes, most likely from sleep deprivation.

“That green bug, it ate the caterpillar” choking on his own tears, the child pointed toward the mantis.

“Oh, that’s a praying mantis, they eat bugs” with a smile on her face, the mother enthusiastically explains to her child about what praying mantis’ do in their life.

“Actually…wait here I’ll need to go get something” The mother left the child to grab a jar. As our mantis friend was about to finish his food, the mother quickly captured him and trapped him in the jar.

“Hey! I wasn’t even bothering your child, how dare you!” The mantis said, however, humans do not understand the language of praying mantis’, or bugs in general.

The mother then brings both her kid and the mantis to her car, ready to go to work. She drops her kid off to a daycare and brings the mantis to her workplace, a laboratory. She was a scientist specialising in insect research. Entering the lab, there were a plethora of bug species encompassing the entire lab. From butterflies to grasshoppers, they were all in their own little clear boxes. The lady then puts our mantis into a box with another male praying mantis.

“Hey there, what’s your name?” The other mantis asked softly.

“Oh, uhm, damn now that I think about it I never thought about my name” think, what was our name before “Oh, it’s Aky” he still remembered his name during his time as a human.

“Nice, I was bred in the lab, my name’s Rick cause I’m never gonna give you up” using his claw to do a failed finger gun. Aky only rolls his eyes.

“So uh, what do they do here?” Aky asks Rick as his eyes curiously wanders the lab.

“Oh, they do a ton of things here, some you are better off not knowing. It can get pretty gruesome, I recommend you not try to delve deeper” Rick said with the calmest voice you could ever hear.

“Well it is a lab after all, I guess dying here won’t be too bad, I did die in a hospital bed before, so it’s fair I die in similar conditions” Aky puts his claw on the glass looking towards the caterpillars in their enclosure.

“Oh yeah, by the way, since you’re a wild insect, this means that we’re married in this lab”

“What?”

“Yeah, basically from what I’ve heard, I’m a test subject for the research in homosexuality in praying mantis’. The last time they did this was with two lab mantis, now their doing it for a wild and lab mantis”

“And why the fuck would they be researching that?”

“You see my friend, or husband, scientist here research everything about bugs, even the most unimportant things”

“You’re telling me we’re married just because we’re part of this stupid research”

“Well, yes, that’s what I got from hearing these wackos, and we are…supposed to mate…I mean if you want”

“Which praying mantis in their right mind would wanna mate in the first few minutes of meeting each other?”

“Hey, the faster we mate the quicker we stop being test subjects”

“And how would you know that?”

“Aky, I grew up in the lab, once they see us mating, they’ll probably write it in their thesis and we’ll be free”

“So I just have to mate with you and we’ll be done correct?”

“Yes baby”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Come on, we’re married, no harm in calling each other pet names”

“Can we just hurry this up, how do we even mate if we’re both males?”

“Just hop on top of me and try to stick your uh…stick somewhere that’s not in me”

“Fine”

Doing as Rick said, Aky hops on top of him and tries to put his member somewhere to seem like they are mating. The scientist of the lab saw this and made observations. They were writing down notes as they see this “mating” action our mantises we’re doing.

“Great, they’ve got eyes on us, now I’ll eat you” Rick said in yet again, the calmest voice

“Excuse me what????”

“Usually when a female and male praying mantis mate, the female eats the male. And since you hopped on me, you are the actual male in this situation, therefore I have to eat you”

“I BEG YOUR PARDON? DID YOU SET ME UP TO BE EATEN?”

“Yeah, I wanna be free from this lab after all”

“YOU BAST-“ Rick rips out Aky’s mouth and chows down on his head. Eating all of him down to his scrawny legs. A feast of love as Rick would call it. Such is the tragic end of our dear friend Aky, whose last words weren’t ideal but certainly genuine. Oh how cruel this world truly is even for a praying mantis. This remains true as Rick was not set free, but transferred to a different lab where they were still running more experiments on him. Modern humans have truly caused a shift in wildlife existence, only time will tell if nature will fight back against humanity for what cruelty they have done.