Best of Month: The top ten singles of the year
#10: 2 Chainz’ “Million Dollars Worth of Game” feat. 42 Dugg (Gamebreed)
When I moved out west I was faced with a decision; either I could drive or ship my GMC Terrain over to my new home or I could leave her behind and save up money, maybe sell that old thing, to buy a new one. Well, I’ve been here five months, the Ozone Bus Mk. IV is still parked in my mom’s driveway and my brother hasn’t even begun to look at it to try to get me money for car number five. A lot of mornings when I’m waiting and freezing at a bus station I feel it. I feel it every time I ask for a ride anywhere. I feel it every time my partner and I have to wait to be picked up and have to duck in whatever business is open. I just really need a car.
I realize, of course, that this is a strange blurb to write on a single released by a man who makes more money off of one show than I’ll probably see, or even want to see, in a lifetime. Every year I gather hundreds of singles into a master playlist and I listen to that while I drive. Only now I haven’t driven anything in so long. When songs like this come on? Fun songs of genres I don’t usually dive too deep into? That’s when I feel most alive behind the wheel. So, I might be a broke girl on the west coast, but when I can drive again I’ll be sure to have this be one of the first songs I take a ride to in whatever car comes next.
#9: Lucy Dacus’ “Kissing Lessons” (Matador)
Speaking of fun songs - Lucy Dacus had another short, punchy single I enjoyed this year. Now, Dacus’ music isn’t exactly not what I’m normally into, but I didn’t quite connect with Home Video in the way I had hoped. “Kissing Lessons” on the other hand? The short, almost punk-like song always fires something positive in me when it comes on. It’s fun, it’s singable, it’s everything I want a good single to be.
On the lyrical side, Dacus talks about being a young girl and practicing kissing with another girl her age. This story concludes with her looking fondly on someone she hasn’t seen in years and memorializing her forever by wearing her first initials on a bracelet. To me, a story of repressed queerness that you turn into a positive is something that really resonates with me. I didn’t come out publicly until this year. There are so many stories of me as a little girl trying to understand why I had to be a boy. I’m not ready to share those with much of anyone, maybe I never will be, but I do know they belong to me and that they inform who I am today. Maybe for Dacus that’s what this always was, a story she kept close to her heart until it was ready for us to see.
For another year IMAY has given us just a small taste of whatever it is that’s coming. At this point a promised EP seems so far away and yet I’m still satisfied. “Cthuwu” may be the band’s best song to date. It’s incredible to me that song-by-song this band keeps innovating in ways I could never expect. Daisy’s vocals are so much more heightened performance wise and the band behind her is on fire. From the electronic intro to the progressive chord structure at the very end, it’s all so tight. If a release ever does come we’re in for a massive treat.
While Big Thief’s latest record failed to really stick with me I couldn’t get this song out of my mind the whole year round. There’s something about the guitar tones on this one. Every time I listen to the track I can visualize a moving painting rich with the most beautiful landscapes you could imagine. Something about it manages to get me lost every single time. I know this band means a lot to a lot of people and while I’m not quite there they’ve really sold me in a big way on this one.
100 gecs seems to be one of those bands you really love or you really hate. I used to be in the latter and admittedly a lot of their old material was hard to swallow before I really started to digest it. That being said; the direction these new songs are going is really exciting to me. Laura Les and Dylan Brady have managed to hold onto their hyperpop, off the wall roots while delving now into ska punk and it’s something to behold. The bass tones on this track are captivating and the duo’s dual vocals are something special. All in all? I’m ready for this new record to blow me away.
I had huge expectations for Remember That You Will Die in 2022, so huge that I expected it to be a last minute album of the year contender. Well, my twenty-five choices are locked in and Polyphia is nowhere to be found. In a way I’m relieved because that just means I can include “ABC” in the singles of the year. To me, this is the height of what I want out of a band like Polyphia; to be an instrumental band, be able to construct a track that works so well on its own and then have unbelievable chemistry with a guest vocalist is a real showing of their strength. This was a great one to throw on for days on end, I tried so much to sing the alphabet as fast as Sophia Black can in this one. So maybe the record didn’t stick with me but whenever I think about Polyphia I’ll think back to this song and maybe I could even check out some of Black’s music on my own time.
#4: Pierce the Veil’s “Pass the Nirvana” (Fearless)
It seems like every half a decade or so Pierce the Veil returns with the best song in post-hardcore, releases album of the year, tours for awhile, then goes back to sleep. Yet the scene doesn’t appreciate them when they’re here. Everyone wants “King for a Day 2.” Nobody wants the incredible genre pushing “Pass the Nirvana,” which combines the band’s usual sound with a grunge element, giving vocally intense verses alongside a chorus that can only be described as a breakdown within itself.
When the band released Misadventures it was their best. Tales of traveling the world and all the horrors it has to offer backed with the best that songwriter Vic Fuentes had in him at th time. The Jaws of Life is starting to look just as incredible but to be met with the same fate. It will be released and its intended audience will say it’s only okay. They kicked out their in-house predator, they started touring again with one of the biggest bands we have, they played the classic hit right beside its original feature and released two of the best songs in their career. We don’t deserve Pierce the Veil, we don’t deserve the record to come. We will get it though and we have a piece of it right now.
#3: pulses’. “XO (Sold Out)” feat. Zach Benson
I could tell you to listen to pulses’. poppiest song, which primarily features lead vocals by Zach Benson and explores the nature of selling out and being critical, maybe to a fault, of your own artistic output. I could also tell you to go stream “Run the Ghouls,” which may be their heaviest song to date and has almost no singing features whatsoever. You should listen to both, you should have your eyes on pulses. in general. Their back catalog is incredible and they have so much coming up in the future.
What I’m actually going to do with this write up is thank pulses. for always including me in their releases. Last year I covered this band so much, I never dreamed that they would give me first listens on the only two songs they dropped the year after. It means a lot to me to be able to be a part of any community in the artform I love. I know I’m not a musician, I’m not a podcaster, I ask people to come to a BlogSpot website and read about what I’ve been listening to. That’s a big ask in the current year, I’m not even sure why I do it this way. Clearly someone believes in it though and I’m thankful one of my favorite bands believes in me the way I do them.
#2: Paramore’s “This is Why” (Atlantic)
I’m not really sure what to say about a new Paramore song. To me, I’m very sure this is the greatest band that ever did it. Every new song is worth the multi-year wait. I never know what to expect next. I did not think the next return would be dance punk. I did, however, expect it to come after a huge change in my own life. After Laughter started rolling out when I moved out of my parent’s house at a time where I was learning how to stand on my own. Well, the new record is coming when I have to learn that all over again.
Speaking of, this year I reached one hundred posts on AsterTracks and for the occasion I chose my ten favorite records of all time. The last Paramore album stood at the very top of it all. Now, entering the new year, I’m wondering if the follow up will surpass even that. I’m wondering if seeing them live will finally work out for me. Either way, I’ll do what I always do; listen the second it comes out and hang onto every note, every word.
Your AsterTracks single of the year for 2022 is...
"One Whole Me" by Dev Lemons
It seemed like Dev Lemons was everywhere this year. Despite her homebase being Tik Tok as far as social media goes and me not having an account there, I managed to always know what she was up to. I got engrossed in the YouTube videos, I listened to all the music and this song stood out among it all. “One Whole Me” is a song about learning to break away from codependency. Coming from a relationship where I was the one depended on for over a decade, it was hard not to graft onto that in my next one. For the first couple of months of being with my new partner I felt myself really slip into that mindset for the first time. One day this song came on my shuffle and I remembered I had to try to be able to be alone so I could stand alongside someone else. The lesson sunk in, I got better about being on my own and now I feel like I’m in the healthiest place romantically I’ve ever been.
So hey, Devon, thanks. It meant so much to me that it’s my favorite song in a year where my all-time favs dropped.
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