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rpintheskies-blog · 5 years

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chapter one part one

The house was just as empty as always. The large glass windows covering every wall made it feel like a fishbowl. If it wasn’t for the large gate and winding driveway to the house, Stella would have felt completely unsafe. Then again, Stella hadn’t felt safe for a year. Not since Alison disappeared.

September first was a warm day in California. Adorned in her pajamas from the night before, Stella made her way through the kitchen. She was hungry, craving everything and anything. It was cliche but she especially wanted some peanut butter and pickles. One hand cradling her stomach which was now visibly showing, the other rubbing a sore in her neck. She was so focused on the hungry pang in her stomach she didn’t even notice the other presence in the room. “Good morning.” The raspy voice called out, calling her attention the guy sitting at the counter, a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of him.

“Hunter, you’re up early.” Stella teased, sending her stepbrother a knowing smirk. She knew he was out all last night with some friends. Probably going to some A-lister parties due to the privilege of having Grant Carter as his step-dad. She went out a few times this summer with him for a few lunch dates with him and his socialite friends. But once her photo ended up on a tabloid wondering who this mystery girl was, she stopped. She couldn’t be caught. Not in her state, and not attached to her parents’ names.

Hunter just scoffed in response, shoveling more Frosted Flakes into his mouth. “Could say the same to you, Balloon.”

“Wow, nice. Make fun of the pregnant girl.” She shot back immediately, not paying too much attention as she shifted through the fridge, the cool air that gushed out refreshing her in the Cali heat. It was full of organic food: kale, tofu, and rows upon rows of green cleanse juices. Karolina was a little eccentric, to say the least. Settling on one of Rosie’s organic and vegan brand Go-Gurts, she turned back to Hunter. “How the Hell did you get sugar cereal into this prison?”

Hunter laughed loudly, his laugh much more giggly than deep. He grinned, his dimples deep. He looked like a puppy when he grinned like that, amusement evident on his face. “I thought you were warming up to the Brady Bunch Stells.” It couldn’t have been more ironic. Her dad’s new family were the ‘Brady’s and they were just as perfect. Karolina was the sweetest woman, but also strong and the mayor of the town. She oozed power but also was super motherly and caring. The closest to a mother figure Stella could ever have. Hunter was fun. He always knew how to make Stella laugh, and they used to go out a lot together hitting every VIP club and bar they could hit when she visited. Then there was Kayla. One would expect Stella and Kayla to be neck to neck. That Kayla would be an evil step sister just like in the movies. Well, she had her moments but nothing worse than a typical 14-year-old girl who’s a little privileged. Kayla probably would have been a little monster if she didn’t love the idea of having a new shopping buddy and someone to watch trashy reality tv with.

“Oh God, don’t act like I ever hated you guys. I’m pretty sure I stayed for Christmas a year after the quote en quote scandal. I just feel more comfortable now with everyone. Plus, I’m very grateful that Karolina has been so kind considering...” She trailed off, gesturing to the bump at her stomach. “Gianni pretty much screamed his head off at me for two hours straight. I swear it was the most we have talked since I was born and it was 95% Italian and profanities.”

Hunter laughed again, but this time it was much shorter, his usual wide grin dropping slightly. His eyes were filled with concern, making Stella slightly uncomfortable as she felt the mood drop in the room, She focused instead, on the stubborn plastic on the Go-Gurt, finally managing to open the tube, and eating some despite the sudden loss of appetite.

“We all make mistakes, Stells. It’ll get better.”

Only if Hunter knew. If he knew what news was going to be delivered that morning. What mistakes were really going to catch up to Stella. How there was no chance anything was going to get ‘better.’

Willa was 4 months old, resting on Stella’s hip as she surveyed the empty house, bouncing her lightly. The last thing she needed right now was a baby crying. It was hard being in Rosewood. Back to where everything happened. Where she lost Alison. The town had obviously changed since she was gone, or maybe she just did. She was used to sunny California where a girl hadn’t been missing for a year. Sunny California where she was always surrounded by people, her family.

She didn’t know how much she missed it until her feet hit the cold marble floor. The house felt more barren than it ever has. Probably because she was expecting her father and Raphael. Of course, they didn’t come. She was too much of a shame now to her extraordinary designer of a father. Dropping her bag on the floor, she made her way upstairs towards her room. Walking down the long hallway her curiosity peaked when she noticed one of the guest room’s doors were open, light flittering out from the crack. She moved slowly to the door, furrowing her eyebrows together in confusion. Was someone else here? Did Gianni decide to see her after all? Pushing open the wooden door slowly she peeked inside.

What was inside surprised her more than the presence of her own father could. Pictures of animals hung on the wall, a cushy rug on the floor, and assortments of pillows and cloths. As well as a crib. Her father made a nursery for her. Well, he paid someone to make it for her. But the thought meant everything. It was most likely Raphael’s idea, being the softy he is, but for Gianni to actually make it happen was a huge step.

“Willa, look! Your room is so pretty...” She looked down at the little angelic face that was her daughter, a smile on her lips. She couldn’t help but love the precious little being she held in her arms, how her eyes were slowly fluttering closed. Exhaustion was hitting her just like it was her mom. Both had a long journey from California to Pennsylvania. Letting out a breath of relief, Stella carried her babe gently, placing her down in the new soft padding of the crip. “Get a good rest tonight sweetheart.” She cooed, leaning down and pressing a kiss on the baby’s smooth forehead. Already passed out, Willa’s small breaths were audible. Stella could have watched her for ages, looking down at her from above the crib, a distant look on her face. Life without Willa in it feels like a different reality, something very far away. A life where she had Alison.

“Stella?” Grant Carter’s booming voice echoed off the large corridor’s walls. “Stella!” He called again, sounding closer. Stella straightened up, her eyes meeting Hunter’s, both kids with wide eyes. Grant Carter was always cool and collected even in the midst of big films when tensions and stress should have been high. But here he was yelling around the house with such agency.

“Dad? I’m in the kitchen!” Stella called back, a frown etching itself into her face. Her body surged with worry. Something in her gut was telling her something bad was happening, that whatever her father was going to say was going to change her life. She was correct.

Grant Carter in his infamous white V-neck tee and faded jeans turned around the corner. He was a typical attractive man in his 40s with tan skin and salt and pepper hair. He looked like a movie star and acted like one too. But he was acting much different than usual. He was stiff, his eyes sharp, and his frown deep.

“Dad, what is it?” Stella asked, bracing herself for the worst as her father opened and closed his mouth repeatedly trying to find his words. He was always better at presenting his thoughts visually. “Dad?”

“It’s Alison. Mr. Dilaurentis called. She’s missing.”

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recommendedlisten · 6 years

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If you had something to say, then 2017 was the year to say it. On a greater level, the year as a whole for humanity was rife with frustration and anxiety due to our sobering state of the world. Every day, it seems we live in fear of an all-out nuclear war starting because of what our so-called president tweets, or we wake up to a new scandal revealing how some famous person who contributed art that helped us get through our own valleys was nothing but a monster themselves. Add to that, we’ve all got our own mundane crosses to bear daily, and so, the song became an important way for musicians and listeners alike to decompress any of their emotions as a means to make it ‘til tomorrow. This year’s 30 Best Songs had an interesting way of placing politics in front of the conversation without necessarily having to spell out the words. They were filled with faces new and familiar preaching self-care, resistance, escapism, a reminder of love, and the faintest glimmer of light in these dark, hard times. We may not know what tomorrow holds, but at least they gave us every reason to hold onto hope.

30. Heat - “Sometimes” [Topshelf Records]

The solipsistic lovers of the world might say that all you need out of a relationship is someone you who can be lonely with. Call it intimacy for introverts – People who’d much rather stay in on the weekends, curled up on a couch under a blanket with another warm body rather than parading their relationship around town like it’s something that needs to be confirmed through others’ eyes. That turning inside while staring straight into the eyes of another isn’t quite what it seems, though, and is an unusual source of comfort on “Sometimes”, off Montreal dream-pop trio Heat’s sophomore effort Overnight. Credit half of that sentiment to frontman Susil Sharma’s tender growl held into the Psychedelic Furs’ soft fluorescent bulb, and the other in the way a celestial loop of guitars and cherry lipped sparkle of new wave refracts warm, vibrant hues within the room. Even in Heat’s perceived lonesomeness, those walls hold evidence of an intimacy that might actually be closer to the side of selfless than a selfish kind of love.

29. House of Feelings feat. Shamir - "Falling" [Infinite Best]

House of Feelings, the all-encompassing band / radio show / DJ night dance party spearheaded by Matty Fasano is a glue that keeps a close-knit family of mostly NYC-based artists from all walks together, as it also features YVETTE’s Dale Eisinger behind the boards, ambient electrician Joe Fassler on its wirework, and on their debut EP Last Chance, film critic Kristen Yoonsoo Kim on guest vocals alongside Perfect Pussy and MTV News correspondent Meredith Graves. “Falling” feels both like a homecoming and goodbye party for every member who crossed paths by way of Godmode Music however, as it reunites former labelmates with arguably their biggest success story, Shamir, for what he calls “one last disco song” – A reference to the sonic 180 of artistic authenticity he pulled this year when he self-released his sophomore effort Hope and joined Father / Daughter Records for his third, Revelations -- Both stark lo-fi indie rockers that sounds nothing like the new age house bangers of his debut Ratchet (sorry for the reminder, Shamir!) His alien falsetto side by side with Fasano’s handsome croon makes for carbonated future-pop that spins around a synthetic sun dial until the sky above them bursts open and rains down neon teardrops, because eventually, everything comes crashing down in the end. House of Feelings just chooses to dance itself through these changing motions regardless, and in a year where we could all stand to help each move forward, it’s the energy we need.

28. Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else - “Wrong Turn” [Run for Cover Records]

Prolific Chicago-based songwriter Spencer Radcliffe’s Run for Cover debut Looking In was a wonky, cantankerously unraveling, yet promising peer into Rafcliffe’s introverted spectrum of experimental guitar pop destined to lead somewhere astonishing down the road, and as it turns out, that would be “Wrong Turn”, the standout listen from this year’s Enjoy the Great Outdoors. Something is very obviously different about Radcliffe’s sonic adventures these days, however,, and visibly, the attachment of “& Everyone Else” on the album’s credits does a lot of the explaining for you. It’s not just Radcliffe at arms with himself inside his own head, as the inclusion of a full band who here, metaphorically embody the exhilaration of being swept into a moving vehicle and venturing into the open world with the windows down. It’s like a real time brain chemical reaction of a homebody realizing exactly what they’ve been missing.

27. Alvvays - “In Undertow” [Polyvinyl Records]

Alvvays made a small splash in 2014 with their self-titled debut, released in good company with the fuzzy indie rock rumblings going around Polyvinyl Records. It was a reliable indie-pop gem that further blurred the corners separating lo-fi guitar pop and shoegaze at a close distance thanks, in part, to singer Molly Rankin’s soft-sung warmth, but respectfully showed potential for the quartet to grow into their own in time. On “In Undertow”, the spiraling opener to their sophomore outing Antisocialites, Alvvays add more vivid detail to their dreamy framework in the way it stretches their sound across bigger rooms with longer wavelengths of cascading guitars and the constant ripple of romance. It’s the perfect vessel for Rankin to wrap her head around a relationship as it gently spindles out of her grip. “You find a wave, and try to hold on for as long as you can / You made a mistake you’d like to erase and I understand,” she sings. “What’s left for you and me? / I ask that question rhetorically.” That answer is often easy to see, but often our heads are being tossed beneath the surface to see it clearly. Alvvays just make that drowning sensation feel like bliss.

26. Downtown Boys - “Lips That Bite” [Sup Pop]

Nothing stands in the way of Providence protest punks Downtown Boys trying to tear down the system from the roots up, and loudly raising their voices on the issues on their Sub Pop breakthrough Cost of Living. “Lips That Bite” compresses the politically-fueled tension built into their sound through a pop bubble, going from 0 to 100 in post-punk clanger, and then coupling it with new wave synths, shout-along refrains, and a sax blast that burns down the disco in a similar path blazed by Le Tigre and Love Is All. It’s one of the outfit’s most direct attempts at tearing through our own personal anxieties and struggles with their teeth, their words, and their bodies, and when it’s channeled with as much focus as this, there’s enough fuel behind their fire to soundtrack the battle without our muscles giving out on us.

25. Gouge Away - “Swallow” [Secret Voice]

A year ago, Gouge Away put out their debut full-length Dies, a promising first impression from the Fort Lauderdale hardcore band who create progressive aggression tailored to the pit. Vocaliist Christina Stijy is a welcome change of pace within a mostly-men-and-meathead-dominated scene whose super specific lyrics take on everything from animal rights to deep wound witnessed accounts happening in and out of the head, with the balance of the band tipping the emotional gravitas into her direction with a heavy melodic intensity. This year’s single “Swallow” is definitively a strong leap forward for the quartet since their last step in the way they amplify energy through a bigger projector, thanks in part by stepping into the studio with heavy music producing savant Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Frameworks.) What begins as a slow rumble is soon standing nose-to-nose with you in HD monochrome as Stijy screams “Hand me the shovel and repeat / “Dig it up, dig it up, dig it up!” The ferocity is commanding without apology, and at once, inviting, too.

24. Charli XCX - “Boys” [Atlantic Records]

It’s a necessary reminder that when it comes to pop perfectionism, Charli XCX is an A-lister who – when she’s catering to both playing fields of accessibility and art – has a finesse in mending the bridges between present and future-perfect production that enables her to sound ultra current, yet still leap years ahead of her peers ten times the size of her stature. She needn’t get all fancy either. In fact, refining her palette on “Boys” down to a minimal number of hues is what makes her latest fluorescent light show dazzle in all its longwave rhythms. The chiptune effects add a colorful touch in playing up the latest version of her plastic party girl persona, and when you place it over the female equivalent of an Internet fap off database of a music video, you can better understand how a pop star like Charli XCX -- whose next album is torturously being held up by major label red tape and calendar dates -- can take her sweet ass time arriving when she shows up looking impeccable once she finally does.

23. Japanese Breakfast - “The Body Is a Blade” [Dead Oceans]

Japanese Breakfast’s shape-shifting sophomore effort Soft Sounds from Another Planet spans a stylistic universe as diverse as synth-pop to orchestral balladry These are mostly new moves for project mastermind Michelle Zauner, who has in the past spent time leading the scrappy indie rock band Little Big League, and with last year’s debut Psychopomp, reinvented herself as something akin to a dream-pop next-gen. But then there’s a track like “The Body Is a Blade”,where at the exact moment it hits on the LP, it properly acknowledges all past, present and future lives, and more importantly that guitar rock is not dead, and in fact being safely restored in the hand’s of women. Its melancholic drift and wistfully webbed time signatures are immersive on the ear, worming their way directly into your head with an almost mantra-like pattern that flows with sage self-care wisdom of exorcising past traumas from your life. “Your body is a blade that cuts a path from day to day.” Slowly, but surely, she eases the pain away.

22. BROCKHAMPTON - “SWEET” [Empire / Question Everything, Inc.]

The Los Angeles-based, multi-cultural et. al. collective BROCKHAMPTON has assembled its members over the years using a Kanye forum as their connective tissue. On “SWEET” it’s a classic case of strength in numbers, with its 7 rhymers bringing a different voice to the fold, sort of like Wu Tang Clan did, but with the youthful wisecracking of Odd Future minus the lack of self-awareness, and star power equally distributed throughout. “SWEET” is both that and buttery in the way they lay out their blueprint to success, and it’s not so complicated: Staying authentic, owning up to their struggles, and taking Kendrick’s advice to stay humble to heart all figure into the equation as members Matt Champion, Dom McLennon, Merlyn Wood, Ameer Vann, and JOBA all cope with their changing lifestyles by telling us where they’ve each come from. As Kevin Abstract sings in a pop sugary hook not far removed from hip-hop’s radio-ruling era of the late ‘90s and early millennium, its got these boys twisted up like licorice in a stressful, yet exciting way, and we’re the lucky ones who get to watch them figure it all out.

21. Citizen - “In the Middle of It All” [Run for Cover Records]

Midwestern punks Citizen have come a long way since their early years of spitting teenage angst into hook-driven post-hardcore on their debut Youth and coming of age in proggier pastures on the other side of the light like those throughout 2015′s Everybody Is Going to Heaven. Growing up with the quintet has made their evolutionary steps more evident, and in exploring darker territory with their rural American dissection As You Please, they’ve recorded the year’s best mainstream alternative rock single with “In the Middle of It All.” For the third straight time, their moody aggression is complimented in the studio by rock perfectionist Will Yip who brings into focus a maturation in frontman Mat Kerekes’ vocal gravitas and songwriting, as well as a deeper side-winding of melancholia steeped within Citizen’s rock solid wall. The apparitions of feather-light harmonies floating around its dark passages are almost supernatural, however, like arms reaching out to save anyone stuck in the middle of drudging suburban monotony, and offering a real escape.

20. Frank Ocean - “Chanel” [Blonded]

Frank Ocean in album form is majestic, but when he flips the switch and goes into it in single form, he can make some of the best and effortless-sounding idiosyncratic pop music out there. In 2017, his Beats 1 “blonded RADIO” show became the vehicle of reminding the world of this, especially with one of his many standalones of the year, “Chanel”. It’s a bright, trot-paced run over a sunlit piano riff where either the iconic designer fashion label or mythology depending how you look at it doubles metaphorically in presenting Ocean’s uncanny perspective of seeing both sides in the world, be it his rags to riches career, continuing to erase culturally blurred lines in bisexual innuendo throughout music, the duality in styles showcased between last year’s simultaneous release of Endless and Blonde, or even more intriguingly, that this song may have helped to mark the start of a new phase in his sonic evolution – albeit, a more commercially palatable one at that, which would in turn prove Ocean’s entire point on his complete existence in the process: As long as you’re calling your own shots in the world, you can have it any way you want.

19. Julien Baker - “Even” [Matador Records]

Turn Out the Lights is a triumphant work of catharsism by Julien Baker, the emotive Memphis artist who has built a songbook on baring her soul -- even its uglier sides -- out on the stage. Armed with a bare bones of instruments, her music could be construed as maximal self-awareness with a minimalist construction that oft makes her prose raise bumps on the skin. “Even” is a different kind of monster that brings this entirely to a new level. The acoustic cut finds the 22-year-old singer-songwriter indulging her sinister side as she recounts a night filled with fireworks, black eyes and eventually putting her fist through the bathroom wall of a Motel 6. As with most of Baker’s songs, there’s a duality in the conversation as she expresses remorse to someone else while talking down her own demons. “It’s not that I think I’m good / I know that I’m evil / I guess I was trying to even it out,” she concludes in what’s easily 2017’s most public moment of painful honesty.

18. PRIESTS - “Nothing Feels Natural” [Sister Polygon]

We first witnessed the foundational brickwork PRIESTS would lay three years ago with their ambitiously promising debut EP Bodies and Control and Money and Power, and on this year’s formal full-length debut Nothing Feels Natural, we now hear how the quartet’s constructive artistic vision stands out defiantly like a pink White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. The offering dissects everything from mass branded consumerdom to norm culture among other existential decries, with its title track being of the more universally resounding examples of malaise set forth by leader Katie Alice Greer. “Perhaps I will change into something / Swing wildly the other way / If I go without for days will I finally hallucinate a real thing,” her cynical wishes go into a wash of rippled electrical surf and a rhythmic spin cycle. Our burdens may seem never ending. PRIESTS at least help us wade through them.

17. Big Thief - “Shark Smile” [Sadlle Creek]

The little nightmares within Adrienne Lenker’s storytelling are what separate a Big Thief song from being more than just a melancholic refraction of the past. Even when Lenker fantasizes of the deathly harrows, she still manages to make every detail feel so much like a part of her real life. In this case, it’s with a sly grin of a “Shark’s Smile” and a car crash catastrophe that wraps a young woman and her lover around a guard rail before life and death separates the two. The mid-tempo roll and Lenker’s hush breathing, “Ooh, baby, take me” an one final gasp of oxygen gives “Last Kiss” a run for its money when it comes to romancing teenage tragedies. The tale told may be violent, but that dark fateful moment of impact is captured with an unexpected moment of soft ecstasy.

16. Kelela - “Frontline” [Warp Records]

Ethereal new age R&B queen Kelela’s debut full-length Take Me Apart is defined by the broader pop ambitions beyond the shadows of the electronic underground she cultivated early on in her work. No better on the listen is this represented on “Frontline” where Kelela spins around a meticulous dream-weaving dance she often does around romance’s darker and messier corners, and in turn, is a reminder that her music is an experience to get your mind, body, and soul lost in, wholly. Produced by early collaborator Jam City, it really comes as no surprise that its production is absorbed by a black lit bass pulse that has been her sound’s most basic element. Its words, while sifting through the fragments of a broken relationship, acknowledge both a grieving process to an end, and a source of empowerment rejection can create. “Hold away, you fucking with my groove / Getting on this plane, making moves,” she defiantly pushes off. “Cry and talk about it, baby, but it ain’t no use / I ain’t gonna sit here with your blues.” In short, Kelela is done playing games, and this track is evidence that she’s got bigger things on her mind.

15. Girlpool - “It Gets More Blue” [ANTI-]

For Powerplant, Los Angeles-bred indie punks GIrlpool illed in their quiet, understated rumble in the studio by adding drummer Miles Wintner to the mix. “It Gets More Blue” realizes the full scope of their louder range when Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker channel electricity into the room as well. It turns out that this wall of hushed static could very well be the unofficial fourth member behind Girlpool, as it backs its faces’ cloudy harmonies up with a complimentary hook-driven heaviness that embosses their every word framed as a doleful love letter between a global warming inventor and the dreamy nihilist they intend to impress. The hues of blue may get deeper and darker as the budding romance get more luckless as the prose wears on, but Girlpool’s new sense of sound never stops radiating signals of to keep the distance within arm’s length.

14. Sorority Life - “No Halo” [Triple Crown Records]

To exorcise your personal depression demons with a healthy outlet is a godsend, and for Sorority Noise’s Cam Boucher, songwriting is it. On “No Halo”, Boucher deconstructs the death of a friend and processes ensuing feelings of guilt and grief in a way that’s screaming out for peace of mind. The quartet’s aggressive mope rock sophomore breakthrough Joy, Departed and last year’s sedated and muted It Kindly Stopped For Me EP touched on distinctly different styles of the singer’s creative coping mechanisms, but on You’re Not As _______ As You Think raging opener, he and the rest of the Connecticut four-piece are no longer concerned with holding back on either if they’re both necessary to survive. Boucher’s discomfort is restless in the way it’s perpetually growing slowly on the surface, but for every regret, he and his ‘mate’s wield guitars like bone saws as a cathartic means to cut them out from the future. It may takes several tries to silence those anxieties, but somewhere between the fight and flight, he’ll find his absolution.

13. Jay Som - “The Bus Song” [Polyvinyl Records]

Bay Area artist Melina Duterte, b.n.a. Jay Som, has been refining her craft of lo-fi pop from the coziness of the bedroom through a string of cassettes and BandCamp releases as far back as 2012, but for most of the music world at large, last year’s Turn Into – a collection of demos culled together over the years – broke through those small spaces’ walls and promised to fill the room with her own matter. With her proper debut Everybody Works , she takes that leap with “The Bus Song”. It’s a bustling listen that builds a corners in the claustrophobic space of indie rock to call her own. One would imagine through the track’s technicolor display of softly layered harmonies, mathematically articulate chord progressions, their build into a whirling eruption of fuzzy cacophony, and even an A-to-B conversation between two school kids on a bus that there’s more bodies in that room with Duterte, but no, it’s all her doing. This is Jay Som’s world, and we’re just lucky enough to be riding in the passenger seat.

12. LCD Soundsystem - “tonite” [Columbia / DFA Records]

“tonite” is a dance with death that you always imagined the LCD Soundsystem mastermind could put his signature sardonic spin on while making you forget that you’re shuffling your way into the void to the band’s beat. It being hypnotic makes that very easy to do. Where his sing-speaking ruminations on other artists’ contributions held against his own and his coming to terms with growing older while the scene gets younger paints a bleak picture on what we all have to look forward to inevitably are gratifyingly in excess, the background jam that builds its way to the exit is one made for a low lit club. Vintage synths, post-punk kicks, and disco glitter crescendos work their way up to the level of Murphy’s existential anxieties. Needn’t worry, though. None of it is worth beating yourself up over anyway. “You’re missing a party that you’ll never get over / You hate the idea that you’re wasting your youth / That you stood in the background oh until you got older / But that’s all lies,” he says before the mic drop. In hindsight, everything looks 20/20, but James Murphy is our constant reminder that living in the past sucks, especially when the grim reaper could be knocking on your door tomorrow.

11. Drake - “Passionfruit” [Cash Money Records / Young Money Entertainment / Republic Records]

With this year’s More Life playlist, Drake continued to discover the world beyond Toronto’s city limits by making a concentrated effort to saturate the global market with his huge footprint on every continent he can step on. It’s not atypical for the hip-hop fashionista to make the biggest impact by having his finger firmly on the pop pulse – in fact, his greatest successes over the years through hits in the mercurial R&B of “Just Hold On We’re Going Home” and the dancehall appropriating “Hotline Bling” are evidence of that. The More Life standout “Passionfruit” continues to showcase his ability to finesse trend into his own makings. When left to his devices as a vocalist, the featherweight properties of Drake’s voice can make any track melt, and that the track’s soft body neon beat allows it to flow through with ease is the definition of the kind of animal magnetism that continues to put him on the top of the pop food chain.

10. Carly Ray Jepsen - “Cut to the Feeling” [School Boy / Interscope Records]

Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION is the selfless gift unto all of us that just never stops giving even two years after its release. Aside from being 2015′s utmost perfect pop album, it also carries a reported dozens of songs left on the cutting board, and last year, a handful of them were collected for a listmaking B-sides collection that was no lesser than its full-length predecessor. “Cut to the Feeling” is another hidden gem from the E•MO•TION sessions that only this year found a home on the soundtrack for the French-Canadian animated film Leap!, and with as much of a roller coaster of euphoria as this packs between its butterfly trepidation and climax highs in its heartbeat, it’s eyebrow-raising trying to figure out how anyone could withhold such pure pop bliss like this from the world. Maybe the answer simply comes down to place and timing for Jepsen. After all, E•MO•TION is an entire album narrative that waves a wand of fluorescent synths around every chemical reaction that romance brings with it, and “Cut to the Feeling” is all of that, but in fast-forward.

9. The War On Drugs - “Thinking of a Place” [Atlantic Records]

The War On Drugs don’t compress their distinct sound into a bite-sized sampling picked for radio with their newly minted major label status, but rather something far more bigger than we could have imagined: An 11-minute sprawl etched from the vision of Adam Granduciel’s bleary-eyed Americana entitled “Thinking of a Place”. It’s a cinematic listen that doesn’t mark a departure from the distinctly amber sunset soundscape that the Philly outfit has strewn across indie rock universe, but rather a grander continuation of Granduciel’s journeyman tales reconfigured for a widescreen viewing where his stories of worn romance and ghosts are framed across various backdrops, beginning with Little Bend before moving with the waters of the Missouri, disappearing in and out of the darkness, and awakening to the summer sun. To create these lighting effects and the path guided by the river’s current, every instrument and effects – from its ambient synths, burning guitar halos over a one-speed drum beat, to the warm pull of harmonica – was marked as a passenger suited for each turn on the ride. It’s an endless chase of the one who got away, but always reemerging closely within the War on Drugs’ dream within a dream.

8. Cardi B - “Bodak Yellow” [Atlantic Records / KSR]

We usually don’t get many true Cinderella stories like this anymore. Cardi B, the Bronx-raised rhymer who got her foot in the door on the VH1 show Love & Hip Hop: New York, not only parlayed her notoriety into Internet success, but into actual chart-topping success with her breakout single “Bodak Yellow.” It’s a tough-as-nails introduction to the enigmatic artist chronicling her hard-earned come-up from her days as a stripper to one of the game’s best wordsmiths. Even though she admits its flow was jocked from controversial Miami rapper Kodak Black, B ensures there’s enough conversation going on to keep all eyes on her the entire time. “I’m a boss / You a worker, bitch / I make bloody moves,” hits the savage truth in its chorus. Those are the kind of bold statements that can transcend music altogether, and simply reign as one of 2017’s outstanding pop culture moments.

7. (Sandy) Alex G - “Bobby” [Domino Records]

Despite his talents being called upon for a studio obsessive like Frank Ocean, Alex Giannascoli’s DIY ethos still haven’t found it in their heart to enter a proper studio despite being on one of the largest indie labels going. On the Rocket standout “Bobby”, the artist otherwise known as (Sandy) Alex G at least stumbled upon a new purpose in inviting other hands into the room to play with him. Naked acoustic cuts aren’t anything new in the catalog, but the plot twist in its fiddling bluegrass twang and faint harmonies provided by constant vocal collaborator Emily Yacina mature Giannascoli’s lo-fi dwelling into something akin to a spread of country-fried discomfort food smothered in the dueling’s ambiguously star-crossed prose. It shouldn’t really be much of a surprise that a story about love only gets more complicated when (Sandy) Alex G heads into the sticks with it.

6. Vince Staples - “BagBak” [ARTium / Blacksmith / Def Jam]

These last three years have proven that it’s impossible for Vince Staples to release a bad single, album or EP, and on the heels of a gaudy White House makeover, the Long Beach rapper came into 2017 war ready to continue slapping the living piss out of racial injustice and America’s Cheetos-tinted face of fear with “BagBak”. The track’s opening bars shout out his updated thesis of revolution while proudly waving Staples’ black flag in the process before go all out political in the verses that follow. “We need Tomikas and Shaniquas in that Oval Office / Obama ain’t enough for me, we only getting started / The next Bill Gates can be on Section 8 up in the projects / So today, l love my dark skin.” No I.D‘s warbling liquid beat also marks a hard sonic turn hinted at throughout the better half of last year’s Prima Donna EP, refueling the flame behind Staples’ firebreathing in the process. To the one percent, government, and lead buffoon cordially invited to suck his dick, Staples gets his presidential address delivered with maximum purpose.

5. Zola Jesus - “Exhumed” [Sacred Bones Records]

What made for adventurous experimentation on Zola Jesus’ attempt at a pop crossover with 2014′s Taiga makes for lessons well learned on her return to goth grandeur on “Exhume”. The listen combines the theatrical nature of her last effort’s widescreen aspirations, and throws them into a vacuum of sensory-inducing nihilism with its strobing trap procession, terrifying strings soldiering forward, and the rapture of lost souls that always seems to be drawn into the void of her dark craft. Nika Danilova’s forte as a classically-trainer opera singer is wielded like a defense mechanism in building up a tension resistance against a climbing wall of death’s imperial doom. “In the static you are reborn,” she stands tall as white wall of hiss eviscerates her body. It’s a beautifully destructive reentry into the universe’s force fields by way of crashing the space-time continuum between past lives and an uncertain, tolling future. Leave it to Zola Jesus to go above and beyond to deliver a grave reminder at this very moment of just how alive you really are.

4. Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.” [Aftermath / Top Dawg Entertainment / Interscope]

Here lies the rap game. May it rest in pieces, as Kendrick Lamar takes a sec away from saving the world from itself to claim his spot on the throne with a big puffed out chest on the proud DAMN. anthem “HUMBLE.” This king isn’t the kind that seems interested in material riches or number ones to prove his self-worth. His is in the way he wields his words, and do they ever slay. “My left stroke just went viral / Right stroke put lil’ baby in a spiral / Soprano C, we like to keep it on a high note / It’s levels to it, you and I know, bitch, be humble,” he daggers down over the overhanging threat of Mike WiLL Made-It’s sweat-inducing terror piano production. After changing the game with the interwove narrative of 2015′s hip-hop opus To Pimp a Butterfly, the track stands high and mighty on its own in the grand scheme of the rest of DAMN., because if you’re going to humble the competition with your message, invoking your inner raging messiah in the rap temple is the only way to get that job done.

3. Lorde - “Green Light” [Lava / Republic Records]

“Green Light” begins the next chapter in Lorde’s coming-of-age story, an artist who is still quiet young, and yet, has since outgrown tired party scenes and on her sophomore effort Melodrama, is acting out the growing pains of a major breakup out in public. “I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth / She thinks you love the beach, you’re such a damn liar!,” goes her damning ex criticism on its first chapter, “Green Light”. Tripping over pianos and a blinking hypnosis, it’s as if Lorde sought refuge in every word of Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn Hits... quite literally while escaping into the drunken dance floor ecstasy of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” during her relationship’s downfall. “I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it.” she grasps the air, clinging onto any sign to move forward before the past pulls her steps backwards. For someone hitting rock bottom and submitting to the reckless nature of youth she once defied, Lorde is absolutely radiant in her moment of weakness.

2. Yaeji - “Drink I’m Sippin On” [Godmode Music]

This year, we were privileged to experience the sonic evolution of Yaeji in real time. The Seoul-and-NYC-based electronic artist has come a long way in a very short amount of time since she began vaporizing the dance floor with a series of singles and EPs, but most especially, it’s on “Drink I’m Sippin On” where her hard-earned drive to build a foundation in a crowded house scene finally becomes as close to a permanent residence for her sound. Once obscured in bleary effects and a beat hypnosis, it’s now borderline crystalline here. It’s also a place where Kathy Lee Yaeji’s voice has been made visible. She uses the discovered clarity to support her own distinctive hybrid of Korean-English psuedo rhyme-singing sees her evolve past the part of producer, and a triple threat as a vocalist and norm culture-colliding personality as well. Upon its release, she may have called the track “non-alcoholic”, but “Drink I’m Sippin On’ is very much under the heavy influence of seeing Yaeji find her own source of self-empowerment, and that’s how the switch has been flipped on her charisma and made her one of 2017′s most lit new artists.

1. Paramore - “Hard Times” [Fueled By Ramen]

Paramore underwent a matured reinvention with their listmaking 2013 self-titled effort that found their first outing as a three-piece embracing the pop arena without entirely leaving their mall-punk past in the dust, and it delivered with it some perfect singles. Four years later, a bit of shape-shifting back into their natural chemistry (former drummer Zach Farro has since reunited with the group) again pushes the moving unit forward on After Laughter’s opening party line “Hard Times”. The listen is a natural continuation of Paramore’s more explicitly cross-genre-nuancess in its neon ‘80s new wave and afrobeat inspiration given an edge with its tinkering dance-punk percussion, and producer Justin Meldal-Johnson’s brand of radio-friendly synth shellac again serves Hayley Williams and company’s world-conquering intentions to the fullest. For her part, Williams, still fully adulting and reeling following a private breakup, makes the leap from “Ain’t It Fun”’s reality check to keeping her head afloat with the daily struggle. It’s the most feather light sigh in response to having the weight of world on your shoulders. In a year when each and every one of us probably wishes there’d be a day where we’d wake up feeling fine, “Hard Times” is a pure pleasure reminder that it needs to get worse before it gets better.

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