In another six months, half of these songs may be forgotten.
Call it internet-induced amnesia. Spoiled for choice every minute we’re open to it, with 10 new songs ready to vie to be your favorite every day.
But if pressed to recommend what’s roughly the best 30 minutes of music of the year that has been, this is as good a jumping-off point as any.
From here, dive into the albums that house these songs, or check out .
10) Andy Shauf, “Quite Like You”
This hardly known Saskatchewan singer-songwriter turned in his fourth album, “The Party,” this year to nary a peep of fanfare. “Quite Like You” is the deserving lead single and should go a ways to change that. Like the album as a whole, its pathetic protagonist and shag-carpet atmosphere would make it a shoe-in for the score of a not-too-distant Wes Anderson film.
9) Sia, “Reaper”
The Kanye West-produced single off of Sia’s latest and greatest album, “This Is Acting,” is as purely triumphant as anything she does. While she usually spends most of her airtime discussing her fears, the Australian singer-songwriter stares down death here while invoking life’s simple pleasures — “drinks to drink, a man to hold.” It’s the tingling peak of your month’s best night out, frozen in audible amber.
8) Wye Oak, “Watching the Waiting”
This is a B-side? Hmm. “Watching the Waiting” caps off Wye Oak’s latest extended EP, a clutch of so-called leftovers from their go-round in the studio. One artist’s trash is another fan’s treasure: Stirring ’80s hairspray pop in with oddly sentimental lyrics, it’s the catchiest song they’ve ever written.
7) Angel Olsen, “Shut Up Kiss Me”
On Angel Olsen’s latest single, her patience is in short supply. She swipes at haphazardly fretted chords, rushing toward the song’s mantric plea: “Shut up, kiss me, hold me tight.” The song’s sock-hop punk paints a wonderful contrast, with Olsen pulling the listener into a reality where Sadie Hawkins dances are the norm, not the exception.
6) Whitney, “No Matter Where We Go”
Although the brain baby of Unknown Mortal Orchestra drummer Julien Ehrlich and ex-Smith Westerns’ guitarist Max Kakacek, Whitney is more than a mini indie-rock supergroup; they are inspired ’70s rock revivalists. “No Matter Where We Go” is a neat example: Festooned with day-glo riffs and Ehrlich’s whinnying falsetto, they sound like a fledgling Gram Parsons cover band working off of a half-torn songbook. It ain’t original, but, man, is it good.
5) Chance the Rapper, “Summer Friends”
If Chance the Rapper’s third mixtape pulled more hype than it called for, he at least deserves credit for that: After leaving a trail of guest-star crumbs, Chance peeked his head back into hip-hop proper with a killer verse on Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam” (more on that later). Nothing on his subsequent mixtape “Coloring Book” could match its height. But it is full of modest, better-than-good pop-rap tracks such as “Summer Friends,” which is more affecting and memorable than its unassuming beat and the employment of its Bon Iver soundalike would suggest.
4) Anderson Paak, “Come Down”
In one album, Anderson Paak went from “who?” to “who else?” — and “Come Down” is a prime example of why. While the R&B artist proves his music is so much deeper than most of the genre’s flesh-focused slow jams, “Come Down” is a confirmation that if he wanted to, he could be a club hero if his head weren’t so far in the clouds. That’s a good thing, but holy crap: For sheer dumb fun, “Come Down” has yet to be beat so far this year.
3) Kanye West, “Ultralight Beam”
“Ultralight Beam” is evidence of Kanye West’s singular vision and also probably how maddening it is to work with him. Incorporating a choir, a of an enraptured toddler (“We don’t want no devils in the house!”) and West’s own assertion that “this is a God dream,” the song is gospel music as only he could picture it (i.e., largely self-aggrandizing). It was also supposed to be the album closer, flipped at the last minute into the opener, which confuses some of Chance the Rapper’s highlight-worthy bars.
2) Radiohead, “Decks Dark”
On an album of creeping sadness, Radiohead allows a funky undercurrent to slide in on “Decks Dark.” “When into your life / comes a darkness,” Thom Yorke intones, ominous as an eclipse. Despite that helpless foreboding, the rhythm that accompanies him is hardly submissive, a slinking thing that could have fallen out of the band’s . The track bobs in and out of gloom, sporting a textured dynamism that Radiohead has excelled at across their catalog, but rarely in the confines of a song as they do here.
1) Drake, “One Dance”
Drake’s “One Dance” is the biggest song of 2016 so far. Objectively, the song has been perched atop the Billboard Hot 100 for eight of the 27 weeks that have passed so far this year. Empirically, from party buses to weddings to Drake-themed blow-outs, no song winds up a room like “One Dance.” It’s afrobeat flavor lends it a dance floor savvy that had until late been missing from Drake’s catalog. Even though it’s based on the here-and-now power of two people on the dance floor, Drake still manages to be a little insecure: “As soon as you see the text, reply me.” That’s OK: Few rhythms this year can build confidence like this one.
