Music & Films for
Common People
Pleasure
feist
50
Feist is not only showing her maturity, but also her agency. By making a track devoted to Pleasure, she defies old norms about what women are allowed to talk. It has very sexual connotations, but she keeps it elegant all the time.This is the rawest we've seen her.
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the embers
vagabon
49
The Embers is honest, has this raw DIY production elements that suit Tamako's personal story and statement, and goes from softly showing us her insecurities to accompanied by a dirty electric guitar, loudly expose a society that is not gentle against their minorities.
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sign of the times
harry styles
48
Cutting any ties with his past as a teen pop star, Styles delivers a mature and elegant indie ballad that is maximalist in its elements and draws inspiration from Bowie and Queen. With such different approach to pop, could he be the Justin Timberlake of the new generation?
suffer me
sheer mag
47
Following the band's stand on use their music as a political weapon, Tina Halladay's powerful voice starts remembering the bloody Stonewall riots that denounced the oppression to queer people in 1969, making a stand for a historically oppressed group.
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little bubble
dirty projectors
46
This cute postmodern ballad is about a sour break-up and the memories of the good past times. But is it about a romance? Or about Longstreth break-up with his band? Or even about the political progressive bubble that has just burst? Cryptic and totally hypnotic.
czech one
king krule
45
For Czech One, Marshall creates a musical noir atmosphere, with jazzy piano and sax in the background, but the electronic effects make it a surreal experience. The way he has with words it's the central to the piece with structural, rhythmic and figurative richness.
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something to remember me by
the horrors
44
This is The Horrors at their most pop festive moment (well, think of what those words could mean for a neo-goth), and they just created the perfect song to close their life sets now that their festival appearances. Are they veering towards a New Order sound?
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over everything
courtney barnett & Kurt Vile
43
Over Everything comes as a casual conversation between Barnett and Vile, exchanging notes on their songwriting styles with ocasional digressions to small comments of their feelings inhabiting an absurd world. They're just happy to have found each other.
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lmk
kelela
42
LMK is sexy and suggestive R&B, but Kelela isn't going to take the passive role in the conquest, she is very blunt in what she wants and what she expects. Sexual freedom at its most empowering, surrounded by an industrail bass and retro synths.
mythological beauty
big thief
41
Adrianne Lenker pens a love letter to her mother that is the anti Mother's Day song. Here, she reflects in her mistakes, her acts of kindness and her most vulnerable moments, coming to understand her at a deeper level, acknowledging that she too is just a human.
carin at the liquor store
the national
40
By watching his wife exiting a liquor store, Matt Berninger remembers falling in love with her, the parties, the weekends with friends, and he remember messing it up and promising her that he'll be a better man. They have just made their personal story a universal one.
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a private understanding
protomartyr
39
Protomartyr uses ancient Greek philosophy to explain the world in the age of post-truth and irrational fanaticism. With a heavy influence of Joy Division's post-punk, A Private Understanding positions the band as the pessimist prophets of the decline of society.
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recite remorse
waxahatchee
38
On Recite Remorse we find Waxahatchee coming to terms with what was what really attracted her of former lover, and how her own insecurities left her unarmed against him. It's a song of liberation and growing wiser after an abusive relationship.
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the gate
björk
37
Björk creates oneiric textures of a fantastic natural universe, to guide us through a gate of self-discovery. It is a song about becoming whole after a break-up, and the place where we arrive is shiny and fertile, an open space that births fresh and brilliant ideas.
paraguaya
juana molina
36
By taking the role of a dark witch, Molina casts a spell in a full moon night for a former lover. Full with dense atmospheres and accentuated creepy percussions we feel trapped in her dark mansion and in no time she has hexed us to participate in her macabre dance.
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sugar for the pill
slowdive
35
Sugar For The Pill is a soft shoegaze ballad that deals with a fading love story, rich in textures and dreamy ambiences, showing that they hadn't lost the smart writing and the perfect execution in those 22 years on hiatus.
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rest
charlotte gainsbourg
34
Gainsbourg teams with Daft Punk's de Homem-Christo to create an espectral lullaby that transforms soft and tender romantic pleads into ethereal meditations on love, memory and possession, flirting at once with the sublime and with the macabre.
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call the police
lcd soundsystem
33
James Murphy goes monumental in his riotous Call the Police, an stadium anthem that keeps the frenzy growing until this big rebellion that he has conjured is ready to go and eat the rich. An exuberant production and mordent lyrics for their big comeback.
give me a reason
ibibio sound machine
32
This is a truly festive mix of genres that will have everyone dancing, but if you're not versed in Ibibio language, you'll never possibly imagine that this is a song that laments and reclaims social and gender justice after the abduction of 276 Nigerian girls.
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slide
calvin harris feat. Frank Ocean & migos
31
It's a relief that after what seemed like a selling-out for fame and money, Calvin Harris proved us wrong and came back to the game with a funky and warm track ideal to soundtrack the coolest pool parties, and he certainly chose the best company.
thinking of a place
the war on drugs
30
11 minutes of hazy nostalgia. An emotional road-trip through memories evoked by the deep United States, this is music that flows through your consciousness, mixing the emotions of the present, the longing for the past, and the hopes and fears for the future.
die 4 you
perfume genius
29
With its intermittent trip-hop beat, dark textures and disembodied voice, Hadreas embodies a wild thrill-seeker that tries to suffocate his anguish (in a very literal way) by bordering the dangerous line that ties sex and death.
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blue train lines
mount kimbie feat. king krule
28
Blue Train Lines is Mount Kimbie at their rawest, it's the most aggressive side of post-dubstep, it's the release of the feral instincts that were sulking in the dark tonalities of their sound, and they couldn't have got a better voice than King Krule's for this.
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legend has it
run the jewels
27
Killer Mike and El-P take turns to spit verses to construct their own legacy as one of the most exciting rap bands nowadays. It's a fierce track that still sounds like they are having so much fun in between their social and political fights.
to the moon and back
fever ray
26
Industrial synth-pop that could be the soundtrack of a sinister amusement park, charged with sexually explicit lyrics with a feminist and queer agenda. In a year of women speaking up, Dreijer empowers female sexuality and the value of consent.
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