Top 10+ Songs of 2016
By Greg Cameron
2016 was a weird and wonderful year for the music industry. In no other year than this one, could you find such a bountiful variety of music from so many different genres.
On this list you will not find any songs by Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Drake, Kanye West, or Frank Ocean. In no way is that statement a condemnation of each artist's work, but more of a statement of the music that lit up my radar.
Without further ado, here’s the 10+ songs that soundtracked my year.
15.)Maren Morris — I Wish I Was
Listen to that intro riff; that’s vintage Bonnie Raitt in bleeding through a Fender Twin Reverb thanks to Nashville’s latest darling, Maren Morris. The song itself is the tale of a woman hating how she can’t simply reciprocate the feelings directed by one-time significant other.
Haven’t we all been there? ‘I like you, but I don’t love you,’ is the moral in this story presented by Ms. Morris. It’s a song of almosts, but more like not quites in terms of love.
In a year that sure as hell felt like love was lost, that feeling never sounded sweeter in 2016.
14.) Modern Baseball — Mass
Philadelphia emo kings Modern Baseball penned quite possibly the shortest and sweetest ode to distance relationships. “Mass” is the kind of song that sounds like that summer fling that you endured that one summer until you both couldn’t take the geographic divide any longer.
Co-frontman/guitarist Jake Ewald’s lyrics glorify even the smallest things that you miss doing with that person presently situated in places elsewhere. The road makes you miss all kinds of nouns that make your world brighter and stronger.
For 104 seconds, few compositions drove that point home for me during 2016.
13.) Jimmy Eat World — Sure and Certain
In a lot of ways, 2016 musically felt a lot like 2004 — a year where Jimmy Eat World triumphantly returned to the stage. 2016 was no different for the Arizona quartet.
This year, the band returned with Integrity Blues, an album that is arguably the band’s best since 2004’s landmark disc, Futures. “Sure and Certain” sounds like it would fit right in line with that disc, complete with open chords and drop D tuning.
12.) Blink-182 — California
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UvRj2SFpU
A funny thing happened to Blink-182 on the way to 2016; they got exceedingly better. That is in large part to Matt Skiba joining the fold after the band’s acrimonious split with founding guitarist Tom Delonge.
With Skiba in the fold, he and Mark Hoppus began writing some of the best songs that the band has written in a long time. California is no exception to that end. It almost closes the band’s latest album and has Hoppus doing some of the most serious work he has done since +44
11.) Yellowcard —Fields and Fences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgxq454okQ
“It’s easier to leave than to be left.”
For Florida pop-punk kings Yellowcard, 2016 marked the end of their run as a touring and recording band. Their final album was released in September and felt like the exact way a band like them should say goodbye.
It was understated in parts, sad in others, and earnest everywhere else. Ryan Key has always been a great songwriter and his capstone thesis in Yellowcard, heard here, is maybe his masterwork as a songwriter. It has those newfound Nashville influences mixed with the Yellowcard you know and love from the old days.
It’s a shame that an album that feels like a farewell thesis is also arguably their best and most substantial to date.
10.) Brian Fallon — Nobody Wins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxVgt_2Bqcc
This song first found me on the train one morning shortly after what could only be described as a fairly messy breakup and did it ever sound like that very moment crossing the Mystic River, groggy and alone in the cold early spring Massachusetts sun.
Fallon’s work in The Gaslight Anthem takes the best raucous chords of Springsteen’s The River and turns them into rocking songs of pain and heartbreak. On Painkillers, his solo debut produced by Butch Walker, feels like Fallon’s attempt at a latter day Springsteen album weathered by the pain wielded by nostalgia that would make Don Draper nod in a knowing moment of appreciation.
9.) The Menzingers — Lookers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWEoQTvzoGM
Remember the days where the nights felt free and endless? Pennsylvania punks, The Menzingers, certainly do. That very same nostalgia presented in a hyperlink above powers this tune. The past is a very powerful thing and pushes us towards the things we have yet to experience.
Songs like this sound like the past, but certainly have at least a foot grounded in the present tense.
8.) The XX — On Hold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blJKoXWlqJk
Has heartbreak ever sounded this danceable?
Britain’s The XX have made maybe the most danceable song of heartbreak since a certain Swedish pop queen dropped this about six years ago. Sometimes just changing the accepted tempo completely changes how you feel about something or someone. That very theory takes hold in this 3:44
7.) Into It. Over It. — Where You Are/Anaesthetic
Growing older shouldn’t be hard. And it should just sound natural. For Evan Weiss of Chicago’s Into It. Over It., that is the case here with this tune here. It’s equal parts salty smartly measured. Weiss plays his Telecaster to perfection in the intro riff here.
Also, Anaesthetic, the track that follows the above tune, which can be heard below this graf, is the perfect slow-tempo counterpart to Who You Are Does Not Equal Where You Are. It asks all of the right questions in a sea of doubt, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZBjYGCw_u4
6.) Butch Walker — Ludlow Expectations
Butch Walker has been writing songs that grow and breathe in open air for decades now and on his latest effort, Stay Gold, resides his latest track befit of this description, Ludlow Expectations.
The song starts with the gentle engine hum of a hot rod and slides gently into a synth-fueled intro layered on top of bright, shiny, guitars. Walker’s 2016 was a banner one as a producer and performer, but this tune is the pinnacle of his leather-clad, drive all night power pop this year. Few songs sounded like leaving your hometown in a more triumphant way.
5.) The Lumineers — Cleopatra
For a youngish band, The Lumineers sure know how to write a great song — Cleopatra is no different here. The song can make you laugh, smile, and cry all at once. The point here is simple. Life is out there. Go out there and live it for yourself before you let it slip away. Be thankful in those moments, too.
4.) The 1975 — A Change of Heart
The 1975 created arguably the year’s boldest pop album that didn’t get the respect it deserved during the calendar year. It’s not up for any big awards or anything, but dammit, it should be. Someone broke Matty Healy on this song and broke him bad. Coupled with the above video directed by Tim Mattia, Healy’s heart is visible on his sleeve here.
For my money, this was the most hearbreakingly honest song of 2016.
3.) Radiohead — True Love Waits
Some songs take a long time to come to full fruition. For about 20 years, Radiohead fans have been waiting for a studio version of True Love Waits. This year, that was a wish granted. The song is a piano-driven composition of longing and not letting a once-great love walk out that door quite yet. Passion is quietly the best club in Thom Yorke’s bag and this song shows it in spades.
2.) Chance The Rapper — Finish Line/Drown
Few songs screamed positivity as loudly as this one did. Chance The Rapper is a superstar and this is his grand musical moment on Coloring Book. Listen to this one with the windows down and the sun out as you drive back home sometime soon.
And T-Pain’s chorus is incredible. Live forever T-Pain.
1.) Pinegrove — Old Friends
Here’s old friends, new friends, and everything in between.
Pinegrove’s Cardinal might have been the best emo, indie, and alt-country albums I heard all year. Old Friends is the perfect album starter and soundtracked so many different things for me all year from heartbreak, heart full, and everywhere in between. They’re the kind of band that feels unique in their time.
