Johanna Mae Sommer’s Top 10 Songs She Found In 2018

(In no particular order)

1. Full Control- Snail Mail

I could write a three page essay for every song off Snail Mail’s debut Lush without blinking an eye. Without a doubt, I have spent more time with the 16 songs in her catalogue than anything else this year. And I don’t have the slightest remorse. It all started with “Pristine,” Lindsay Jordan’s first single from the new album, in which I listened to it enough to have every lyric at least once drawn on my Physics notes. My anticipation for the full album was tangible, and I couldn’t have been more satisfied. Fantastic coming-of-age tracks like “Heat Wave,” “Stick,” “Speaking Terms,” “Golden Dream,” and “Deep Sea,” (yes I know this half the album), swirled around my conscious for months after the release, and I still re-visit them on the regular.

One song that rose above the others for me was the two minute fifty-five second “Full Control.” The drums come in with a snap like being whipped into clarity, which is precisely why I adore this track. Jordan displays an impressive sensibility of self-awareness and maturity that I have adopted as a personal mantra: “I’m in full control/ I’m not lost/ Even when it’s love/ Even when it’s not.”  In my eyes, the key to a great songwriter is to take limited diction, and arrange the words to be profound, simple, and communicative. At the ripe age of nineteen, Jordan is on her way to mastering this art, somehow not getting distracted or manipulated by the surplus of critics and publications deeming her the next “indie princess.” I don’t see myself straying from Jordan or her work for a long, long time. How could you when she put the entirety of my highschool love life into one simple line: “Wait for you and then waste my time?” Clear, insightful, perceptive, heart-felt, the list is endless. I’m confident in predicting that whatever she release next year will make my top ten list too.  

2. Tears Dry Original Version- Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse is one of the artists I have loved the deepest for the longest period of time, but this year I really listened to her in a way I felt I hadn’t before. I read her lyrics as if they were novels, and found the demos and rejected tracks I had never heard before. This solidified my undying adoration for her, which is not something I say lightly. I won't dwell; I’ve already written extensively about this (go read it).

I was always a huge fan of the original version of this song off of Back to Black, but I

have found this version off of Lioness speaks to me more particularly. The tempo is slowed and instrumentation more sparse, allowing the vocals to breathe as I think they were intended. The horns lead the intro conjuring fifties R&B, before Winehouse’s voice plunges into “All I can be to you/ Is a darkness we once knew,” like the dip of a bird before flight. Winehouse acted as my best friend during the hardest few months of this year, this song in particular sympathizing with me in it’s melancholy beauty. Another lyric to describe myself in an uncanny lucidity: “You don’t owe nothing to me/ But to walk away, I have no capacity.” And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention: “I cannot play myself again/ I should just be my own best friend/ Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men.” My guardian angel.  

3. Your Dog- Soccer Mommy

Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail and Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy are great friends. I dream of an alternate reality a few years from now in which I hang out with them and absorb all of their wisdom and talent. I guess time will tell. Anyway this was the single released in the anticipation of Allion’s junior effort Clean. And I think easily one of the best singles of the year. On Clean, Allison and her band recorded with a producer for the first time, and the slight boost in professionalism and intricacy has done wonders in the development of her sound. I’ve already written a review of this song so I won’t waste your time, but the lyric “I don’t want to be your fucking dog,” is one of the best hooks I’ve ever heard. Case closed.

4. Devil In a New Dress- Kanye West

This sounds wrong to say, but I never really listened to rap music before January of this year. I know, what the fuck was my problem? At this point I feel obligated to include Kanye in this list after Spotify informed me I spent 45 hours with his catalogue this year. It sounds weird to include Kanye in a “best of” list in 2018, in fact I’m sure most fans want to erase his presence from this year almost entirely. I’ve spent the recent months pretending he didn’t seemingly glue a MAGA hat to his head, and avoided the Lil Pump and 6ix9ine collaborations like they were an epidemic.

But before all his controversy came out around last May, I formed a bond with Kanye’s first five albums that I have yet to feel with any other rapper. I had enjoyed him in the past and even went to his St. Pablo tour a couple years ago, but it didn’t click until “Devil In a New Dress”. I adore the song’s production which I’m sure was attempted with a perfectionist mentality since it came off of the meticulous masterpiece that is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The sample used in this track is Smokey Robinson’s rendition of Carole King’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” On of my favorite songs and favorite voices, the juxtaposition of silky syllables under the brash, blunt rapping lured me in from the beginning.

The lyrics of “Will You” is one of the strongest examples of near-perfect songwriting, and I think an influence of Kanye’s writing process on this track. “Devil” is, in it’s own respects, a modern take on the theme of King’s 1960 track. The protagonist is trying to cling onto a relationship that he feels is mostly driven on account of his fame, exposed in lyrics such as “Hard to be humble when you stuntin’ on a jumbotron/ I’m lookin at her like “this what you really wanted huh?” as well as “And out of the colors that fill up the sky/ You got green on your mind/ I can see it in your eyes.” I find this perspective an unusual one in rap music, or even music in general: the acknowledgment that someone could be with you singularly  for their self-gain, and then the heartbreak that comes along with it. At one point Kanye makes a deliberate reference to “Will You” in the line “How she gon wake up/ and not love me no more?” A timeless question shouted into oblivion, and he never gets his answer. On top of great lyricism, a gorgeous piano/guitar break and Rick Ross’ grizzly verse finish off the track, creating a full portrait of insecurity and fleeting hope.

5. Into The Groove(y)- Ciccone Youth

Into the Groove(y), a humorous and demented take of the Madonna track, is the biggest “hit” from Sonic Youth’s side project Ciccone Youth. The distortion of bliss, evil, and adrenaline the track conjures is undeniable, all while providing a perfect beat to dance to. There are two main reasons I love this song: 1) strange sentimental significance that I will not go into further and 2) the way it represents my conflicting personas. I feel like Kim Gordon surrounded by Madonna’s. This isn’t snotty, I do this by choice as a result of my limited highschool landscape, and I find we work off of one another surprisingly well. Just like this song, different types of people can lead to surprisingly good collaborations. As soon as the first bars sink in, I become devious for no rhyme or reason. Probably not in a good way, but I’m sure it’s entertaining.

I always tried to get this to be played at parties but no one let me. Stay tuned, I’ll try again next year.

6. Lonesome Love- Mitski

As soon as I heard the lyric from the first verse “spend an hour on my makeup to prove something,” the song stuck with me, probably because I see myself in it more than I would like to admit. I questioned why I too was “lonely for lonesome love,”  Mitski having a knack for exploring the nuances of romance that add to an even greater sense of yearning.

I had my own interpretation of this track, and probably the one most have, about a manipulative ex that the speaker keeps getting sucked back into. But then I heard Mitski interviewed on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah in which she explains how the majority of her catalogue focuses on her love affair with music, as she sees it to be in the most intimate and lasting relationship of her life. The songwriter also expresses the solidarity found while touring, it has no choice but to isolate her from friends and loved ones. I now see “Lonesome Love” as her questioning the constant desire to be connected to music, even if that means she becomes separated from everyone else in her life. The one case in which an all-consuming, overly-emotional, and controlling relationship isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I would also like to celebrate the lyric “Cause nobody butters me up like you/ and nobody fucks me like me.” Damn.

7. Shallow- Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

I was both apprehensive and hopeful for A Star Is Born; I believed in Gaga and her talents but didn’t know if the would translate to the focal point of the big-screen. Yet, the movie exceeded my wildest expectations. Cooper and Gaga both delivered exceptional performances and emulated incredibly believable chemistry that I’m still not convinced isn’t continuing behind the grapevine. “Shallow” was written by Gaga and three other including the great Mark Ronson, proving her talents by creating a track that can completely stand alone from any affiliation with the film. My childhood pop-hero proved herself to the whole world, and 8 year-old-me beamed like a proud mother. The parking lot scene in which Gaga supposedly writes this song impromptu is one of the film’s biggest gems, she belts the words with a courage and honesty that couldn’t get more raw even if it was happening off-screen. After all, “isn’t hard keeping it so hardcore?”

8. Wild, Wild, Wild Horses- A. Savage

This song makes me stop. Everything. Just put my head down, cry, and feel love all at once. This is the first solo album for Andrew Savage, guitarist and vocalist for the beloved indie rock band Parquet Courts. Their album, Wide Awake!, that came out this year was also quite good. Tracks like “Tenderness” and “Extinction” very nearly made the cut of this list but as per usual I chose the lonely singer songwriter against my better judgement.

It stays within the same musical realm: ambient noises, organ, and a ticking metronome that somehow sound like the auditory equivalent of being wrapped in a blanket. Savage’s voice pours over his sparse canvas and speaking verse after verse of poetry that mean little and so much all at once. It seems to be an emotional capsule, almost haunting in the overwhelming sense of longing that is present. It is the embodiment of yearning, freezing any other progression for just four and a half minutes. “Darling,” Savage calls out with an echo, “take your dress off slowly/ I still got one eye open.” You can feel me swoon.

I doubt this song gets much praise or attention as I don’t think it speaks for most, but for whatever reason it just kills me. And a Rolling Stones reference never hurt anybody.

9. Fuck and Run- Liz Phair

I knew next to nothing about Liz Phair before this year. In fact, I had the impression she was some kind of blonde “pop-princess” that was created by the hounds of the music industry. I’m an idiot. Liz Phair is brash, honest, bold, individual, and a trailblazer. “Exile in Guyville” got a reissue this year in account of its 25th anniversary this year, and so I decided I’d give it a shot. There are many songs I think are great from this record, notably “6’1,” “Never Said,” “Divorce Song,” and “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” but her biggest hit, “Fuck and Run” is really just in it’s own league. The topic of this track is completely explanatory from the title: a women acknowledges the patterns of her complicated desire and rejection of emotional intimacy with men. The lyrics deliver a narrative of the speaker going back to the same toxic man as she continuously pities herself and lusts for a time where relationships weren’t so difficult. “I want a boyfriend/ I want all that stupid old shit/ like letters and sodas,” Phair voices alongside millions of women [and people] that undergo the same stress of the unattainable. “Even since I was 17,” is she calling me out?

10. Shark Smile- Big Thief

I’ve already written about this song but I think it’s utterly timeless, so how about a few more. I’ve played this song a million times this year, and played it a million more.An absolute gorgeous composition that combines tragically beautiful lyricism with effortless vocals and sturdy, elegant instrumentation. The love story it tells is both haunting and glamorous, a runaway romance that can only lead to sexy trouble told like a modern folk song. The third verse begins with the line “Evelyn’s kiss was oxygen/ And I leaned over to take it in.” And that alone grants it a place on this list.