We’ve collectively spent the last few weeks slicing and dicing the year in music every which way, from the obviousstuff to the morebizarremoments. But after taking on 2016’s best exhaustively as a group, we wanted to offer a few favorites on the individual level. Lyrics are deeply personal, so let’s start there, with staffers’ picks for their favorite lines of the year. Some took that to mean funniest or most memorable, others valued politics or intimate revelations, all embraced well-crafted turns of phrase.
Wolfgang Tillmans, “Angered Son”
His son had recently been angered
By seeing two men kissing
After Omar Mateen used guns to kill 49 and wound 53 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando earlier this year, his father was quoted by as saying his son had recently been angered by seeing two men kissing. Wolfgang Tillmans, the German art photographer and musician, crafted a short vocal piece where he loops himself saying just that in a laconic drawl. He makes it a round, the phrase repeated by overlapping recordings of his own voice, the same way you sang “Row Your Boat” in elementary school. It’s legible but nonsensical, crushed into the gibberish it deserves to be. It’s also sad and beautiful, with the tiniest bit of levity: Tillman’s tinny warble as he pronounces “son,” the exaggerated ooh sound he makes saying “two.” Most of all, it’s a stunt song that rings on well past its two-minute runtime—because it’s not like that kind of sentiment seems to be going away anytime soon. –Matthew Schnipper
Cate Le Bon, “Rock Pool”
Bins on fire
What’s the occasion?
Cate Le Bon innocently chances upon the garbage fire of 2016 as if it’s an opportunity to toast marshmallows. –Laura Snapes
The 1975, “Change of Heart”
You said I’m full of diseases
Your eyes were full of regret
And then you took a picture of your salad
And put it on the internet
Because throwing up an Instagram is the new slamming a door in your stupid boyfriend’s face. #saladlyfe #ranchandroll #romainetooreal #artichokeheartbreak –Ryan Dombal
Beyoncé, “Don’t Hurt Yourself”
Who the fuck do you think I is?
You ain't married to no average bitch, boy
You can watch my fat ass twist, boy
As I bounce to the next dick, boy
And keep your money, I've got my own
Keep a bigger smile on my face, being alone
An acquaintance asked me once, seemingly not realizing how backhanded it sounds, “How’d you get to be such a confident person?” “Pop music taught me,” was all I could muster. –Jillian Mapes
Eleanor Friedberger, “Because I Asked You”
Why would you want to hold me tight?
Talk me out of my stage fright
Help me out with my rewrites?
Why would you want do that?
Why would you want do that?
Because I asked you
Because I asked you to
The former Fiery Furnaces singer glides effortlessly between the personal and the universal, the simple and the mysterious, for an everyday epiphany. There’s no obvious A to B relationship between her question and its answer. That’s what makes it feel like a minor miracle. –Marc Hogan
Jenny Hval, “Conceptual Romance”
I lose myself in the rituals of bad art
In failure I want to give up but I can tell
My heartbreak is too sentimental for you…
I'm high, high on madness
These are my combined failures
I understand infatuation, rejection
They can connect and become everything
Everything that's torn up in your life
But come with me, I want to show you something
The original wound, the origin of the world
This is my favorite song of 2016, for the levity of its sound and for its poetic lyrics. Jenny Hval wrote an ode to Chris Kraus’ theoretical novel I Love Dick, which was originally released in 1997 but has found a rabid cult following of late. “Conceptual Romance” captures its emotional and intellectual tenor, as well as Kraus’ notion of “lonely girl phenomenology.” It’s a love song from the perspective of a woman in pursuit of herself—grappling with self-doubt and self-possession, rooted in the endless battle between the body, heart, and mind. “Conceptual Romance” is about the sacrifices you do and do not make for your art and ephemeral love. Like Kraus’ book, it’s comforting and assuring. This year, it helped me to keep going. –Jenn Pelly
Earl Sweatshirt, “Really Doe”
Well, it’s the left-handed shooter, Kyle Lowry the pump
I’m at your house like, “Why you got your couch on my Chucks?”
Motherfucker
Earl Sweatshirt’s verse on Danny Brown’s “Really Doe” is what happens when blunt force meets the most nimble touch in hip-hop. Rap is his domain. Please respect house rules. –Matthew Strauss
Justin Bieber, “Love Yourself”
My mama don’t like you
And she likes everyone
Sickest burn of the year. –Amy Phillips
Ryley Walker, “Age Old Tale”
In a harvest of sepia, you came as ox blood
Wednesday was a ruby, and Thursday was a flood
And I’m beloved by the loved, who love to love
And I can still cut loose on a weekday night
Ryley Walker fit a bunch of my favorite-sounding words into the final verse of his album, then put his money where his mouth is by cutting loose on a weekday night with a fried-out, 30-minute version of this one. –Sam Sodomsky
Angel Olsen, “Shut Up Kiss Me”
Shut up kiss me
Hold me tight
They’re all one-syllable words, but Olsen seems determined to fit more of them into the stanza than are meant to fit comfortably, and they jostle like a flock of pigeons fighting over breadcrumbs, their clipped rhythm perfectly mimicking the rush of desire at its most desperate. –Philip Sherburne
Frankie Cosmos, “Embody”
It's Sunday night
And my friends are friends with my friends
It shows me they embody
All the grace and lightness
Friends hanging out with friends should be the 11th Commandment, or at the very least a sacred ritual. –Kevin Lozano
Frankie Cosmos, “Sinister”
Sometimes I just feel sinister
Can’t always be like Arthur
More often than not this year, I felt like an IRL grinning purple devil emoji. Especially when I’m floating through the city with a “Sinister” pin on my turtleneck. 😈😈😈😈 –Quinn Moreland