Computerbandit is probably my favorite currently-active synthwave band. I just love their icy production and the way that his vocalists match his energy.
This song actually came out two years ago, but broke through in 2022 thanks to its inclusion in my favorite TV series of the year: Netflix's Heartstopper.
Jona Lewie may have preferred the kitchen, but Winnetka Bowling League are opting for an even more reclusive hiding spot. Fantastically relatable lyrics in a toe-tapping little pop song.
I don't know if it's entirely appropriate to call this Goth Rock, but I'm choosing to do so because it feels correct. This is just such a cool song, and it'll be on my Halloween playlists from now on!
Rina's been around for a couple of years, but this year was undoubtedly her breakthrough. Her sophomore album is a front-to-back delight. Every queer person on Earth will relate to these lyrics.
I had heard of but have never watched Flight of the Conchords, so I had no context on this fella's career when I first heard this, but I was immediately in love. Go figure, the album it's from is called Songs Without Jokes. It's just a perfect little pop song!
When this came out back in February, I preemptively declared it my song of the year, and I was almost correct! It's certainly another one that queer people and millennials will find especially relatable, but from a production perspective it's one of those pop rock songs à la the late '90s that you just wanna yell along to.
I am begging -- BEGGING -- my fellow queers to start respecting this woman. She's put out nothing but floorfillers and bangers and you guys act like she doesn't exist! The album is coming in a month or two, and I better see it sail up the charts like it deserves to!
A great little pop song about burnout and the feelings of mania, FOMO, exhaustion, and hopelessness that accompany it. This guy is apparently a comedian, but you'd certainly never know that listening to this. I love it!
It's very rare for me to include a cover on my year-end lists, and funny enough this is the second time a cover of this song has made it (after Meg Myers' wonderful version a couple years ago). I never realized how badly this was begging to be made into a synthwave song, and man, these guys just nailed it, even incorporating some mid-2000s hard rock stuff that should not work, but absolutely does.
Magnificent vocals over production so slick you could slide across it! Let's face it, put a clap sample in your dancepop song and I'll probably love it.
It's honestly nothing short of amazing that Gershon Kingsley's "Popcorn" is still being sampled in pop music in 2022, but that shows you what an absolute musical genius he was. This is Tove Lo's first time making my list, but since we now all know how to pronounce her name, it felt like it was time!
How great is this band name?! It would have been such a shame if they wasted a good band name and made crappy music. Thankfully, they make very cute music, including this wonderful little new wave pop rock track!
This is one of those songs that starts and you know immediately that you're about to hear something amazing. Which is fitting, because it's basically a song about how she's the shit. And I don't disagree. Check out the metric fuckton of sass with which she performs this live!
Sandor Gavin is a name I hadn't heard in many many years; I first (and last) heard of him in the mid 2000s when he released a cover of the Bananarama song "Cruel Summer" (which has apparently vanished from the internet). The real star of this track, though, is the absolutely gorgeous vocal performance by Eileen Jaime, who perfectly sells this synthwave.
Absolutely gorgeous new wave track that leans heavily into the synthpop side of the genre, and takes a turn toward the end that really sticks with you.
Funny enough, I came across this one when a YouTuber I follow used it as bed music in one of his videos. I loved it so much I Shazamed a part that he wasn't talking over. Absolutely killer chord progression and groove!
Ha, I didn't even notice until just now that these two instrumental tracks ended up next to each other on this year's list. That wasn't intentional!
For a musical act that named itself after a Coldplay song, they certainly don't make shitty married millennial pop like one would expect. This is just a fluffy, glowing little synth bop.
Magdalena Bay seems to have had quite the year. They're one of those bands that I'd never heard of, and then suddenly all my friends seemed to be fans one day. And for good reason! They're making some damn fine pop music.
Reminds me of some of the cool dance music that was coming out of Europe in the mid 2000s, but with far more interesting production. Love these vocals!
I turned on the song "Drinking In L.A." for a Gen Z friend a few months ago and he described it as "vibes." I think that's a pretty apt descriptor for this one, too.
Making a song about youth party culture (and perhaps one's feelings of exclusion from said culture) is certainly nothing groundbreaking, but this song is just so cute. The lyrics and song structure are both interesting enough to elevate this to something special.
I love songs about technology. I love that idea that people get excited enough about gadgets to write songs about them. This is not to the level of say, Jane Child's "DS-21," but it's still dorky as hell and I love it.
I love that people are making genuine new wave rock songs again. This absolutely has modern indie sensibilities, but is undeniably a new wave song in structure and melody.
Kygo keeps making my lists, and he'll continue doing so as long as he keeps making quality beats like this. It's borderline corny-ass nu disco à la Timberlake/Mars, but manages to stay on the correct side of that line thanks to his careful production and the barely-not-too-dramatic vocal performance of the DNCE fellas.
Don't let the horrific cover art fool you, this is a very cute new wave synthpop track from what seems to be a still new-ish musical due. According to their bio on their website, "The name for their band THEY KISS came from their friend who said, 'Well you two are in a relationship, so you should call yourself THEY KISS cause you guys kiss.'" Can't argue with that, I suppose.
According to their Instagram, Dolorous appears to be more of an artistic collective than exclusively a musical act. I really love this cute little track because it expertly employs cute little monophonic synth melodies behind a pleasantly soft indie pop song.
I heard the first two lines of this song in an Instagram story and was immediately sold. Admittedly, I'm also a sucker for shouted lines that aren't corny. The vocal delivery is a bit of an odd match for the production, but it somehow comes together into a funky lil ass shaker.
I honestly can't believe it's taken this long for Shania to release an unabashedly pure pop song, and judging from its lyrical content and music video, it's something she's probably wanted to do for a long time. And it was worth the wait! This is the leadoff single from a new album that's due out in February.
I was fooled by the opening bars of this the first time I heard it. I'm glad I stuck with it, though, beause it goes from what sounds like a run-of-the-mill pop rock track into a beautiful vocal performance with heavy reverb on the production and subtle but tight electronic drum samples.
For a few personal reasons, I haven't been motivated to post my annual top songs of the year list until now. And although I have no idea how much I'll feel like writing about these, I at least wanted to archive my list because there are some really great songs here.
Super cute and interesting instrumental track! Absolutely love the way this starts almost like a soft lullaby and crescendos into what feels like a bunch of warm soft blankets and pillows tucking in to surround you.
Bit of a strange little song, this one, but there's something that kept pulling me back to it. The vocals have a kind of bitchy '90s quality, and they work really well with the brilliantly catchy vocal melody of the chorus.
I feel like every year a song like this makes my list. It sounds straight out of 2005, something I'd have played on college radio. I guess part of me thinks it's cool that there are still bands making music that sounds like this, even if I only actually enjoy one out of every 10,000 or so songs. Fuckboy lyrics, but it's a cute song.
I want to love Years & Years more than I do (mostly because Olly is such a cutie!) but they tend to lean a little too heavily into that corny post-disco sound that just doesn't do a lot for me. I don't blame him, though, he's British.
Saweetie had quite the year, didn't she? Years from now when someone is like "remember when celebrities had their own McDonald's meals?" hers is the name I'll think of first, and I'm not sure I can say why. Supremely bizarre video ft. Drag Race UK girls and also the Little Mix gals as drag kings -- not sure why this didn't hit in the US!
This one crept up on me. I thought it was fine when I first heard it, but I found myself humming it again and again and returning to listen again. It's just a great little pop song!
I first learned of Primo from her vocal feature on Sunglasses Kid's "Fixing Me With Love," so I was very pleased to hear a solo track that I also loved! Her voice is so silky.
We don't get enough good pop duets these days, but maybe that just makes the really good ones that we do get even more special. I hadn't listened to either of these artists prior to this release, but they certainly seem made to work together. This is a great song!
Early last summer, a video of a band comprising four teen girls singing in their local public library about a racist, sexist boy at their school took the Internet by storm, and I was absolutely one of the many who were captivated. These girls are fantastic and I look forward to seeing where their career takes them.
I usually know my song of the year the first time I hear it, and this was no exception. I love it from top to bottom, front to back! Everything pop music should be!
I wanted to briefly mention two songs that were standouts for me last year, but that I didn't feel qualified for this list. One was not released this year, and the other was more of a remix than a cover of an old song.
I'm burying the lede a bit here, but this song was the topic of the best podcast episode I listened to last year, Reply All's "The Case Of The Missing Hit": The story of a guy who remembered a radio song from his late-'90s childhood that nobody else remembered existing. Spoiler: It was this.
I'm not even sure it's fair to call this a remix; it's really more of a re-sheen, a polish of the disco hit we all know and love. But it is great, and they even shot a cute little video for it!
Dua Lipa (whose real name, I was surprised to learn, is Dua Lipa), has been around for a few years now, but 2020 was truly her breakthrough. Her album was reviewed far and wide as one of the year's best, and it makes sense; it's a collection of incredibly competent pop songs that sound contemporary and interpolate some '80s ideas that are en vogue.
This track is a particularly good example of that. Her vocal delivery is undoubtedly of this moment, and assuming the synth motif isn't directly pulled from some underground '80s track I've never heard, it is an absolutely brilliant tribute to that era. I love the way it doesn't ascend to the note you think it's going to, dropping down instead to a complimentary lower tone in the scale. Delicious ear bubbles!
The first lady of Cameroooooooooooooon herself put out this absolute toe tapper early in the year, and it's haunted me as a near-daily earworm ever since. It's so easy to run with the cadence and make up your own lyrics about what the dude wants to do to you like a banjo.
A lot of drag queens are also gay dudes, and gay dudes love hot electropop, so it's not a surprise that a lot of drag queens who dabble in music end up making hot electropop songs. I absolutely love the production on this and just think it's a really cute and extremely gay little song.
I haven't heard a song with this specific kind of groove since Daft Punk released their magnum opus Random Access Memories in 2013. It's funky as hell, has great synth motifs, and a robot singer that doesn't feel the slightest bit cheesy for some reason. Damn it I miss roller skating, and I'll be requesting this one the first time I'm back on the rink.
I also love the ever-so-slight alteration at the end of the bridge to avoid a direct Michael Jackson ripoff. Hilarious.
Covers are an extremely rare inclusion on my year-end top songs lists, but Hildebrand delivers this song with so much love, emotion, and expressiveness, I'd have been a damn liar to leave it off. She was the star of the Netflix series Trinkets, a realistic story of trauma and teen troubles shot in my beloved Portland. This song plays over the credits of the series finale, and I had no idea it was her singing when I first saw it, so learning that made it all the more special.
Kudos to the writers of this genuinely charming series for making RuPaul seem human for ten episodes. I'm not being the slightest bit cynical or sarcastic when I say how much I truly loved every minute of this show. It had the energy, charm, and innocence of an '80s road movie, while still tackling some heavy stuff. It's a damn shame it died after a single season, but I'm sure glad we got it.
This was the series theme, but also served as the titular queen's ringtone, which was just too perfect. It's a delightul Patti-Labelle-a-la-Beverly-Hills-Cop romp, matching the series' overall feel.
Freezepop will always be one of my favorite bands, and I'll always be exited about whatever they're up to. They're genuinely kind people who just really, really, really love synthpop and are very, very, very good at making it. Liz's signature over their icy synths will always put me in my happy place.
We fans have been waiting YEARS for this album, so finally getting to hear it and how damn good they still are was just awesome.
Everyone who's known me for more than 5 minutes knows how much I love synthwave music. Ollie Wride simply has the ultimate synthwave voice. I could listen to this dude sing over a wall of synths and reverbed/gated snares all day every day. The way he crushes these brilliantly-flowed vocal melodies is just...man it's heaven.
Troye is another of those artists I'll always follow because they have such a deep affinity and respect for pop music, and it comes through in the tightly-constructed motifs and melodies of his songs. I'm never quite sure what the hell is going on in his music videos, especially in the video for the version of this song that featured Kasey Musgraves, but he's just so adorable and talented that I don't care.
Kiesza absolutely exploded onto the gay/dance scene in 2014 with the most perfect house song produced since the '90s, "Hideaway," but other than the immediate follow-up "Giant In My Heart," I wasn't really into anything she's put out since...
...until now. Man, Kiesza is BACK! And in a big way, too. This is a massive pop song that would have been a #1 radio hit for the entire summer of 1990.
When Aiden released her debut single "Gein," I was definitely into it, and it would have been on this list, but lower.
But then this bitch had to pull out a 707 basketball kickdrum and release the best goddamn Halloween jam since the Oingo Boingo era, and here we are. I mean goddamn, this is great.
In a year of some truly stunning pop singles, it was only fitting that the reigning queen of dancepop gave us one of the best singles of her career. She knew her fans were hungry for a track like this after years of loyalty through an experimental era, and boy did she give us what we'd been waiting for.
It makes me so, so happy to put a Louisville band this high on a year-end list for the first time, ever. And no nepotism here at all -- I genuinely love this song. It's part new wave, part shoegaze, and just gives me a fuzzy glow from the inside out, sort of like when you can tell there's an old CRT television powered on somewhere in the room you're sitting in.
Why is this my top song of the year? It's honestly hard to describe. I'm pretty sure I listened to it more than any other song in 2020, even though it only came out in September. The structure of the vocal melody is perfect. Her delivery is transcendent. The chosen samples are exactly right. It's just all correct!
