My top songs list for this year is as all over the place as my top albums*link*, which I’m pretty happy about. I fell the most in love with offerings ranging through dark pop, emo, country and punk; some mainstay artists proving once again why they’re among the best, along with some more recent arrivals.

“DAMAGE” – Lights

Presenting a new direction for an artist whose sound is constantly shifting and transforming, the single “DAMAGE” is a darker move away from the Pep album cycle. The brilliance of this song is in its simplicity: carried along by a new wave-inspired melody without adding much else to it, the comparatively bare-boned composition allows the lyrics to stand out, particularly the mantra-like chorus, “I swear this isn’t me / It’s the damage talking.” Lights has addressed mental health issues in songs in the more recent past (especially with 2020’s well-timed “Batshit”), but she hits us with such sheer emotional vulnerability and honesty with lines like, “I better post a picture so you know I’m alive,” and, “I’ll go to therapy and blame myself / And they’ll validate me ’cause I pay them to.”

Yet there’s a glimmer of hope toward the end, with, “Life is simple with it / You just keep the dream alive.”

The music video reflects the song’s simplicity, featuring for nearly all of its runtime Lights singing along into the mirror as she cuts her freshly-dyed blonde hair in a performance that veers between self-destruction  and self-liberation… but it’s not until the last few seconds that the despairing reality underneath the fun breaks out, showing once again the stark relatability in her work.

“DAMAGE” hints at the next stage of Lights’ artistic journey, one that I’m looking forward to.

“Starburned and Unkissed” – Caroline Polachek

Featured in this year’s surreal, heart-wrenching horror film I Saw the TV Glow, this dark, atmospheric track amplifies the repression and explosive emotional violence that pervades it. While the song stands powerfully on its own, taking the lyrics into the context (and subtext) of the film renders it even more harrowing, underscoring the tragedy at its center: the cost of shrinking your true self for the world around you. The propulsive emotional force of the chorus, “Come home / The kettle’s whistling / My heart’s a ghost limb reaching / Starburned and unkissed” swells up to release the kind of emotion catharsis in you that you didn’t know you needed, until you hear it.

“Walk Alone” – Anberlin & Matty Mullins

While the fanbase has been divided over the Matty Mullins chapter of Anberlin’s return (including whatever the hell that cash grab Vega was supposed to be), it has produced a great track with the temporary touring vocalist. “Walk Alone” is another song whose brilliance lies in its simplicity, letting the instrumentation fall into the background so that the warmhearted declarations of love and dedication can shine through. If it’s difficult for Anberlin fans to get into at first, then pretend that Stephen Christian is singing, “I promised that I would / Cry with you, hurt with you, bleed for you / So don’t you walk alone tonight” and you’ll hear that it’s still the Anberlin we know and love—just with a temporary new face. Perhaps it’s a simple song, but even the simplest works by Anberlin are uplifting and magical in the way that only they can be.

“Wax” – Yugen

Rounding out emo newcomer Yugen’s anything for bliss EP, “Wax” is a study in understatement. It evokes a paradoxical vibe of melancholy and contentment, through the open hurt in the lyrics mixed with a mellow beat. Taken in with the hope in the lines, “Happier things are gonna come along / So keep your head up,” this feels like the song you put on at 3 am when you can’t sleep out of fear for the present and the tenuous hope for tomorrow, when you just need to chill with all the complicated feelings that come with being alive. Like the best of emo, “Wax” sits with you in your pain so that you can find a way if not through it, then to a place where you can live in peace inside of it.

“Bar Song (Tipsy)” – Shaboozey

Coming out around the same time as Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER, Shaboozey’s hit single gives due attention to another Black country artist when there’s been an insulting lack of them for far too long. Considering that Black people invented country music and that their success in the genre was taken from them without credit, it’s awesome to see artists like Shaboozey coming into the mainstream. “Bar Song” is fun. The chorus is catchy as hell, a party anthem that doesn’t overdo itself and, by the use of the fiddle, actually creates a deeper emotional resonance. It feels like sitting in a rowdy bar on a Saturday night with the right group of people, enjoying the night and chanting, “Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey / They know me and Jack Daniels got a history.”

“Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” – Dasha

Another great country song that crossed over earlier this year (and was made popular by the dance on TikTok), “Austin” has a catchy chorus that gallops along with nonstop momentum. The emotional charge is a mixture of sadness and resentment, as the speaker reflects on a former lover who could have escaped their trappings by leaving for Los Angeles but stayed behind, for reasons unknown and unfathomable. Disappointment runs strongly through the lyrics, as seen in, “Where there’s a will, then there’s a way / And I’m damn sure you lost it,” that ultimately becomes enraged with the tragic and memorable, “I made my way back to LA / And that’s where you’ll be forgotten / In 40 years you’ll still be here / Drunk, washed up in Austin.” For listeners with your own Austins and LAs, this one will hit you. But even if it doesn’t, the infectious chorus and beat will keep it in your head on repeat.

Photo Credit: Spotify