A lot of good, interesting music was released this year: with a 1980’s-70’s nostalgia record from an experimental French group, a soundtrack pop record as good as anything in the “made for movie” genre since the School of Rock theme and a tag team between possibly the two strongest rapper/producers in the game.

Aside from some sampling, every song on this list is fully original work. There are no remixes or covers. All songs released in 2016 were eligible. Playlist link.

30. Bill Baird – Goodbye Vibrations – With a Karen O reminiscent lullaby-melody, Goodbye Vibrations knows it’s overly sentimental, and it uses this goofy sap to make a surprisingly effective ballad. It’s like a shockingly heartfelt moment in a cheesy 90’s sitcom.

29. Hooton Tennis Club – Katy-Anne Bellis – There’s nothing necessarily analytical or groundbreaking about this song. But the story here is so specific – about Katy-Anne Bellis moving to uptown – that it sounds like an inside joke or private conversation that Hooton Tennis Club is allowing their listeners in on. With the Buddy Rock, non-important energy of Grouplove and Family of the Year and vocals vaguely reminiscent of Elvis Costello, this song contains the necessary tools for a Friday afternoon drive down George Washington Memorial Parkway.

28. Julien Baker – Everybody Does –Reminiscent of an early Avril Lavigne hit, this track shows Baker has the chops to be a relevant alternative pop artist. And this relatively upbeat acoustic track is a nice contrast on an otherwise somber album.

27. M83 – Solitude – Junk got mixed reviews, likely because of its gimmicky appearance. It’s a nostalgic 1970’s-80’s sub genre experiment – I get the annoyance with this meta idea, but Anthony Gonzalez is very good at these musical impressions/respectful parodies, whatever you want to call them.

Solitude is the most traditionally M83 song on their new album. This track develops nicely with a constant, flat synth and well timed strings, ultimately leading into a Shine On Your Crazy Diamond-like solo.

26. Whitney – Golden Days – This feel good indie rock band from Chicago really works as an easy listen/ gateway band for your friends who aren’t all that into the whole alternative music thing. Golden Days is their most accessible song. For fans of Dr. Dog, Houndmouth and Girls.

25. Martin Garrix – In the Name of Love – In a universe of formulaic and predictable house tracks, this drop is extremely unique, and it really swirls. It proves that for pop house to remain relevant it’s going to need to take unexpected twists.

24. Caroline – Amine – The opening monologue gave me an old school Wu Tang vibe, and the off beat tempo on this track is super rad. This song is instantly addicting and has a sweet double chorus thing going, too.

23. Sing Street – Up – Awesome movie; hilariously accurate 80’s parody music. If you like indie coming of age movies and 1980’s British new wave, then you’ll like this movie. And this song really captures the movie’s plot of a young Irish kid falling for an older chick with the “eyes he can’t describe.”

22. Lagoons – California – Just a feel good day vibe California groove.

21. Lucius – Madness – Sisterly harmonies are what make Lucius a great band. It was a smart move opening their newest record capitalizing on their greatest strength.

20. Band of Horses – Solemn Oath – I highly recommend the Song Exploder podcast episode for this song – lead singer and guitarist Ben Bridwell explains his complicated relationship with songwriting and the natural high that it gives him when times are tough. Things were going really well for him when he wrote this song though, and you can hear that in the tone of the record.

19. The 1975 – The Sound – Anyone who’s had a tough breakup knows the intensity of that person’s presence when you find yourself in the same room as them. The 1975 do such a great job writing upbeat pop songs with an undertone of grief. The heartbeat-like keys on this song are super clever, too (“the sound of your heart”).

18. Radiohead – Burn the Witch –Thom Yorke’s theme on shooting the messenger/burning the witch brings to mind the stubborn ignorance, absolutism and close mindedness in today’s political discourse. 2016 was kind of a shitty year in a lot of ways (depending on who you ask), and this song embodies the fearful political narrative we’re living in with imagery of a “low flying panic attack” and a call to “abandon all reason/avoid all eye contact.”

And the creepy hook here really does remind me of the kind of jam a witch would listen to while brewing her potion.

17. Mothers – Too Small For Eyes – Here’s a hypnotic guitar string pinching riff with a controlled fluttery vocal that sounds familiar and foreign at the same time.

16. The Avett Brothers – I Wish I Was – The Avett Brothers made some mistakes on their newest record. Not to sound cliché and say “it’s because they changed their sound, man!” (because they’ve done that successfully many times in the past)– it’s just that some of the songs on here just aren’t that good, and sound very artificial (for example, Ain’t No Man).

I Wish I Was though is classic Avett Brothers – a specific, obviously genuine love letter with a beginning, middle and an end, and with an honest expression of longing at the final note.

15. The Lumineers – Angela – Find me a sweeter capo 5 acoustic riff than this. With simple lyrics, just about a girl named Angela, the Lumineers still manage to feel broad in scope without being cheesy with lines like “strangers in this town.” And the acoustic hook on this song is just kind of cute – play it for your girlfriend.

14. Carseat Headrest – Fill in the Blank – This is probably my favorite rock song of 2016. “You’ve got no right to be depressed!” would be enough to be a catchy chorus, but then transitioning to “You haven’t tried hard enough to like it!” jumps the song from standard rock to a full on late night bar jam. It’s a great opening track thematically, too as the lyrics really summarize the demons Will Toldeo expresses throughout the rest of the album.

13. Chance the Rapper – Summer Friends – The smooth experimentation of Francis and the Lights mixed with the expansive sounds of Chance the Rapper makes for the best song on Coloring Book.

12. Frankie Cosmos – On the Lips – Frankie kind of reminds me of 90’s Green Day – she’s bass heavy “punk” and manages so much in just 2 and a half minutes. Humble, little sentences with big ideas.

The transition from “Where would I kiss ya/ if I could kiss ya? to “Why should I kiss ya/ if I could kiss ya?” – It’s children’s book logic, but Frankie gives herself room for this basic diction with concise storytelling.

11. Maggie Rogers – Alaska – Pharrell lost his shit when he heard this song. (Thanks Slate for introducing me to this underdog story). The “And I walked off few” turn from the main intro verse is so sharp. And the second transition into the chorus is even more excellent, accompanied by Rogers’ twinkling synth.

10. The Lumineers – Ophelia – Every year deserves an innocent, anthemic indie pop song that transcends college radio and bleeds into the ears and minds of mainstream American consciousness. Old classics like Time to Pretend by MGMT, Daylight by Matt and Kim, Home by Edward Sharpe and the Mangetic Zeroes. Ophelia is this year’s “alternative family song.”

9. Soccer Mom – Henry – This garage rock song would be pretty good, a solid B+, if it weren’t for the bridge… but the bridge. The feeling this turn generates (about 2 minutes in) makes the rest of the song so much more intuitive, and honestly into one of the most heartfelt songs of the year.

8. Bon Iver – 22 (OVER S∞∞N) – Throughout 22, A Million, Justin Vernon moves further away from his acoustic roots on For Emma, Forever Ago and more toward the strange and infinite world of samples and synthesizers. Although his voice is now covered by process and auto tune (I learned that sometimes on this record he sings into an OP-1, a combination synthesizer, sampler, and sequencer), he still maintains his familiar soft whisper and the capability to create a spark that so perfectly captures his purposely confused experimental folk.

7. Whitney – No Woman – Probably my favorite piano opener of 2016. Whitney’s nod to 70’s feel good Americana comes out strongest on this song but still feels fresh with Julien Ehrlich’s slightly muffled vocal.

6. Conor Oberst – Barbary Coast – On the second track of his newest LP, “Ruminations,” Oberst sorts through his observations in an illogical order and paints a sporadic scene that somehow comes together in the end, which is a technique that I find classically folky (ex: Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, or his own/Bright Eyes’ At the Bottom of Everything). Oberst recounts seemingly unrelated anecdotes and crafts them together into a whole – lyrics about losing himself in Yosemite, flirty checkout girls and an overstimulated modern world.

Oberst has always pulled off the shaky voice pretty well – sounding as if some of the lyrics are almost hard to get out without experiencing some form of emotional distress. It’s a quality that’s brought him some critical negativity by some, but others, myself included, find this style disturbingly honest and true. Oberst is not shy when it comes to sharing his “ruminations,” depression, acknowledgement of his occasional alcoholism and his racing mind.

At face value, the line “I don’t wanna feel stuck, baby/I just wanna get drunk before noon” isn’t really that introspective – but in the context of an artist who’s lyrics have often carried themselves in whirlpools of alcohol and despondence, these words come out as an accepting summary of all of the somber themes Oberst has slowly crafted over the years.

5. Carseat Headrest -(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs with Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem) – CarSeat Headrest feels like a compilation of all of the stylistic highlights of indie rock from the past 15 years, but pulled off beautifully, without feeling tedious, repetitive or goofy. It’s nodding to the cool monotone of Julian Casablanca, the grandeur build ups of LCD Soundsystem and the ironic allusions of Courtney Barnett.

And this song has it all: the angsty chant in “The scum of the earth!”, the play on words with drugs are better with friends with drugs, the hilarious acid-trippy narrative and Will Toledo’s talk-sing style throughout.

4. M83 – Sunday Night 1987 – This song really worked for me because it reminded me a lot of what I really liked about M83 to begin with on an album that felt so different than Anthony Gonzalez’s previous work. And the 80‘s nostalgia was pretty fitting for me when I was very obsessed with the show Stranger Things. No, I wasn’t alive in 1987, but this musical impression is so apt that my limited pop cultural knowledge of this time period feels like enough for me to at least sort of get it.

The ability for artists to express an unexplainable sense of melancholy, longing and sentiment is something I admire perhaps more than any other phenomenon in music. All of my favorite artists are uncanny at this (Neutral Milk Hotel, The Beatles, The Avett Brothers). And I can totally vibe on the Sunday night feels of being a young kid, thinking about family, getting older, and things like that.

3. Kanye West – Ultralight Beam – “[Keeping] faith,” no matter how that might look for you, has been difficult for many in a dividing year politically. And using a cute child monologue and a gospel choir is going to give your song a larger than life energy in any scenario, but when paired with Chance the Rapper’s lyrics and Kanye’s producing, it makes for an eclectic piece of music that pretty much defines the anxiety of 2016.

2. Big Thief – Masterpiece – Adrianne Lenker’s voice stirs a hard crackle but is also equally soothing. She takes a simple pairing of an A minor and G/C and generates something alluring and full. Masterpiece takes you on a personal, diaristic ride with a filthy guitar solo and imagery of a place that “smells like piss and beer.”

1. Bon Iver – 29 #Strafford APTS – 22, A Million is what happens when you combine a historically traditional folk artist with an ambition to move forward into an uncertain future, an ambition that – at least sonically – wants nothing to do with the former. This record is a mashup of beautiful folk songwriting with the strange, curious and somehow pretty product of a processed Vernon vocal, synthesizers, samplers and sequencers.

This album captures warmth in little moments that stick out. On 29 #Strafford APTS, there’s several: from the very first lyric, “sharking smoke…,” to the surprisingly high note in “paramind/canonize/some night…,” to the strange, almost creepy tonal decisions that oddly feel romantic.

The faded horns, ghostly sounds and glitchy vocal on “you’ve buried all your alimony butterflies” expand on the weird folk/synth universe that Justin Vernon has introduced on the album’s first few tracks. The fact that he manages to still capture raw emotion underneath his bizarre electronic experimentation makes the resulting feeling that much more brilliant.

But regardless of how you feel about Vernon’s processed voice, his marriage of synth and folk, or even the strangeness of the song title, there’s really no denying the beauty of a song like 29 #Strafford APTS, because really, “it comes always off the page.”