We’re more than half way through the 2018 auditing period, Dear Reader. That means it’s time to pull down the shutters, call in the staff, and do a stock check on the only thing that counts. Cold, hard Bangers.
We’ve run the sums, calculated the co-efficients, and come up with our definitive top 50 tracks of the year so far. You can read the full run down now in the new issue of Dork, or keep pace on readdork.com over the next few days as we count down.
Obviously there are rules to this countdown. You can read them here. You can check out numbers 50-41 here, 40-31 here and 30-21 here.
Featuring appearances from the likes of Superorganism, Chvrches and Idles and more, here’s the next 10 to make the cut.
20 Thyla I Was Biting
One of the most exciting new bands.
Fans of grunge bangers rejoice – Thyla have got your back. Their latest single ‘I Was Biting’ sees the band taking shelter in a world of their own creation, as they declare they “only want to live in a place that I read about”. If only life could be so sweet.
Of course, this is Thyla we’re talking about, so it’s not all happiness and light. They’ve still got their fangs. After all, the reason they want to move to this fantasy world in the first place is because the real one sucks. So ‘I Was Biting’ doesn’t hold back on the scuzzy riffs and hammering percussion, and Millie Duthie’s vocal is as sharp and strong-hearted as ever. This alternate private reality is a fortress.
What they say: “‘I Was Biting’ is about dystopian aspects of modern society and a discontent for it. We talk about a unanimous feeling of anxiety and a desire to live in a fictional state of our own dreams; to escape from the mundane routine and expectations of society”.
19 Chvrches Graves
‘Love Is Dead’ at its most bangeriffic.
An undeniable highlight on new album ‘Love Is Dead’ with a chorus bigger than anything that’s come before; this isn’t a song to skip. Despite its serious political subject matter, each second is dripping with pure pop brilliance from the hint of strings just before the chorus punches you in the face to Mayberry’s vocals twisting around the massive synths to deliver each word with the ferocity it deserves. This isn’t just a banger, this is a gold plated turbo banger with custard on top, ‘Graves’ is Chvrches in all their magnificence fist pumping all the way to the grave.
What they say: ‘Graves’ is a particularly important moment. “It’s a cheerful one, isn’t it?” grins Lauren. “We didn’t sit down and say, this song is very danceable, so we need to have a lyric that’s really not,” she continues. “It just came out. The verses happened for that very quickly. Most of it happened in the room, and there’s a lot of imagery in it so that must have just been in my head, it just needed to get tapped into.”
18 Superorganism Everybody Wants To Be Famous
And they could be if they wrote bangers like this.
Superorganism came out of nowhere earlier this year and were instantly one of the most exciting bands around. ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’ is a perfect crystallisation of what makes them so great. A video that accused lead singer Orono of being a hologram coupled with an earworm of a chorus that you just can’t help but sing along to. We’re still convinced that these guys are some sort of hive-mind from the future, but with songs this good, we don’t really care either way.
17 Pale Waves Kiss
Nothing to do with Holly Valance, unfortunately.
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense as to why Pale Waves look like 80s goths. Sometimes they release songs like ‘Kiss’, and it’s perfectly clear. Two bars into this cut and you’re reminded that Robert Smith also had dyed black hair, wore lashings of eyeliner and wrote jangly guitar pop songs. With all the usual Pale Waves-isms, including references to dreams, waves, heaven and hearts, plus a twinkly guitar line running through it, ‘Kiss’ is just another slice of indie pop goodness, served fresh.
16 Janelle Monae Make Me Feel
Makes us move.
Christ, talk about a comeback. ‘Make Me Feel’ was the first track Janelle Monae released after a five-year break. Of course, it sounded like nothing else on the album that followed it, but that slinky guitar/wobbly bass/popping and clicking beat made for an earworm-worthy of all its Prince comparison. It’s a truly groovy jam that blows you away a little bit when it slaps you with that “it’s like I’m powerful…” line. The Tessa Thompson-featuring video was a statement and a half as well, a celebration of Janelle’s bisexuality that set up for a full-length feature that accompanied the album.
15 Idles Colossus
Colossal.The first release from Idles’ upcoming album ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, ‘Colossus’ is a pretty good indication that they’re not mucking about with the formula too much. Step 1: Pick a topic that everyone can agree needs knocking down a peg or two (in this case the cult of the ‘real man’). Step 2: Write song pulling apart said topic limb from limb. Step 3: turn it into an absolute punk banger. It might not be a track you can play to your granny, but it’s a socially conscious gut punch that still makes you want to leap about like a lunatic. See you down the front, yeah?
What they say: “This is a song that dances between pure fear of failing at the expectations of bullshit manhood / adulthood and the exhilaration at being liberated in the knowing that I can be a boy and naked, dancing around the fire forever.”
14 Boy Azooga Loner Boogie
All boogie, no woogie.
A scuzzy, reptilian, rock and roll classic, ‘Loner Boogie’ is one of the finest examples of why we love Boy Azooga so much. Taken from their debut album ‘1, 2, Kung Fu!’ (which, we shouldn’t have to point out, is one of the best album titles of the year), it’s a two-minute slice of classic Boy Azooga hedonism. Building from a tribal drum beat into the audio equivalent of a leather jacket and a cigarette, it’s hard to believe that something so achingly cool could also be so much fun.
13 Father John Misty Mr. Tillman
The weirdo with the beard-o.
So it’s day three or four of your summer holiday, and it’s time for your 10am cocktail. Everything’s great. Except the long days of drinking in the sun might have messed with your brain a bit, and things are going sort of…weird. Like, Father John Misty weird. ‘Mr. Tillman’ is the song for that. The woozy, sparkling rhythms and FJM’s totally blasé reaction to losing his mind are the peak summer holiday soundtrack. It’s here for when you need to check out of reality for a bit – whether you mean to do it or not. We can practically feel the sunstroke coming on already.
12 Friendly Fires Love Like Waves
They’re back, and they’ve brought the summer.
It’s been a while since we heard from Friendly Fires, so when they dropped ‘Love Like Waves’ back in April, we were very pleased to hear they can still smash out the bangers like no tomorrow. Dripping with the influence of DFA Records in the early noughties, Ed and co. deliver a sleek tropical banger to flail your limbs along to. This is only the first taste of what the boys have been cooking up for the last six years, but we absolutely cannot wait to hear what else they’ve been stirring the pot on in the studio.
11 St. Vincent Fast Slow Disco
Faster is almost always better.
It’s not often an artist releases a remix of their own track, but then again, it’s not often you come across an artist like St. Vincent. Annie Clark’s latest offering reworks the penultimate track of last year’s ‘MASSEDUCTION’, transforming it from a string-clad sultry tearjerker, to an all-out gay disco banger. Adding in a pulsing drum beat and some gospel backing vocals, Annie gives a relatively, well, slow track a new lease of life. ‘Fast Slow Disco’ shits all over its original counterpart; “Don’t it beat a slow dance to death?” has never been a more appropriate lyric.
What they say: “I always felt this song could wear many different outfits and live many different lives. Here she is in disco pants, sweating on a New York dance floor.”
Follow our top 50 rundown with this Spotify playlist, that will be updated through the week. You can read the full list right now in the new issue of Dork. Order a copy below!
Words: Abigail Firth, Jake Hawkes, Liam Konemann, Stephen Ackroyd
15 Idles Colossus
Colossal.The first release from Idles’ upcoming album ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, ‘Colossus’ is a pretty good indication that they’re not mucking about with the formula too much. Step 1: Pick a topic that everyone can agree needs knocking down a peg or two (in this case the cult of the ‘real man’). Step 2: Write song pulling apart said topic limb from limb. Step 3: turn it into an absolute punk banger. It might not be a track you can play to your granny, but it’s a socially conscious gut punch that still makes you want to leap about like a lunatic. See you down the front, yeah?
What they say: “This is a song that dances between pure fear of failing at the expectations of bullshit manhood / adulthood and the exhilaration at being liberated in the knowing that I can be a boy and naked, dancing around the fire forever.”
