#I think I’m going delirious from my own personal soul characterization

[hmsdoodlin]

I think we as a society need more Heart and Soul interactions. They have a lot of potential to be really interesting in BOTH fluff and angst.

Idk y’all but positive Heart and Soul dynamics are really nice. They deserve to be friends and love each other and bond.

They share the same night sky.

[cristalconnors]

CRISTAL CONNORS TOP 10 SONGS OF 2018

10. “Beyondless” by iceage

“But if you think I am that pillar which you needed, believe me, dearest, it ain’t me.”

Earth-shaking, strobing guitars, dizzying distortion, tortured vocals emanating deep from the gut- not exactly new territory for iceage, but this powerful exploration of isolation and inaccessibility still stands out in their catalogue for its tremendous emotional clarity and sublime simplicity. Funny that a song about finite limitations manages to reinforce that the band’s spiritual and sonic scope seems to be limitless.

9. “Rage” by Rico Nasty

“Don’t compare me to these bitches because we are not the same.”

The blossoming of late 2000′s era scene kids into full-fledged artists in their own right, across countless mediums and genres, was of course an inevitability. But the often startling ways that an artist may find inspiration from a band like Slipknot have been straight up delightful. Enter Rico Nasty, whose scope and inspiration as an artist expands well beyond nu metal, but is nonetheless a perfect exemplification of the phenomenon. On “Rage,” Rico snarls over harsh, growling guitar (impeccably produced by Kenny Beats), crafting a hypnotic banger that establishes her as a one-of-a-kind, swaggering rock star of rap that is absolutely, under no circumstances, to be fucked with.

8. “Pristine” by Snail Mail

“Who do you change for? Who’s top of your world? And out of everyone, who’s your type of girl?”

It’s hard to explain just how thoroughly this song would have ruined my life if I had heard it at 16. Lindsey Jordan uniquely understands the absolute certainty when you’re a teenager that you’ve figured everything out- that how you feel right now at this moment is how you’ll always feel. For something so remarkably in tune with the emotional rawness of youth, it feels incredibly polished, mature, and, well, pristine. This is not the eat-your-heart-out, melodramatic nonsense you listen back to and cringe at, but is instead a clear-headed, bedroom rock gem that will never lose its cathartic magic, no matter how old you are.

7. “Slow Burn” by Kacey Musgraves

“In Tennessee the sun’s going down, but in Beijing they’re heading out to work.”

It isn’t often a country star’s concerned with the goings on in Beijing. Increasingly, the genre’s been characterized by navel-gazing, blind patriotism and unimaginative song writing. “Slow Burn” announces that Golden Hour isn’t interested in being like anything else. Musgraves probes deep into her own soul but also sets her eyes on the whole world, crafting a gently moving, stream of consciousness rhapsody characterized by complex textures and a deceptively simple, sweeping lyricism. 

6. “Honey” by Robyn

“No, you’re not gonna get what you need, but baby I have what you want. Come get your honey.”

Robyn has always known the best place to work through something is the dance floor, and no one is as skilled at mining pop for every ounce of melancholy it’s got. The disparity between what we want and what we need is the primary concern this time, as sizzling, pulsing synths and a gradual, miraculous crescendo tell us it’s okay to give in to our base desires, even though we know they’re bad for us. 

5. “Falling into Me” by Let’s Eat Grandma

“You. Me. This”

Let’s Eat Grandma’s Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton just want us to go for it, to say whatever it is we wanted to say to our crush, to just live in the moment. This all may sound tired and trite, but the post modern brilliance of the whirling pop fantasia “Falling into Me” makes tried and true pop tropes sound as rousing and electric as the first time you heard Prince or Britney Spears, but is unmistakably a groundbreaking, singular achievement. 

4. “Lemon Glow” by Beach House

“I come alive.”

Beach House traffics in the smallest of details, slightly nudging their sound in one direction or another in ways that can feel seismic. But even to the casual listener, “Lemon Glow” marks a departure, still distinctly Beach House, but utilizing spellbindingly looped synths, shredding guitars and deranged harmonies to suggest something more sinister and dense than the rest of their oeuvre, proving once again that their songwriting toolkit is seemingly bottomless, and that just when you think they’ve hit a wall, they shatter it and expand.

3. “Honesty” by Yves Tumor

“I want to wrap around you, but I can’t be seen around you.”

My first time wading through Yves Tumor’s inexplicable Safe in the Hands of Love, it wasn’t until I was seized by the delirious hook of “Honesty” that I understood I was listening to something truly monumental. Since then, it’s the track that I most often return to to dip back into his disorienting soundscape, with its meticulous production, enchanting repetition, and unconventional spurts of percussion that bleed together into a positively entrancing sound that demands you to close your eyes and bob your head along with the beat.

2. “Is it Cold in the Water?” by SOPHIE

“I’m liquid. I’m floating into the blue.”

SOPHIE had established herself as an exquisite manufacturer of plastic sounds and a skilled observer and satirist of conventional pop tropes, but with “Is it Cold in the Water?” she developed a captivating, immersive sound all her own. Intimidating, arpeggiated synths and a colossal bass line evoke the sense of punishing, crashing waves, as our protagonist, voiced by Cecile Believe, stands on the precipice, wailing out into the void, frightened but curious. As a trans woman, SOPHIE captures the simultaneously terrifying and ecstatic leap of faith that is coming out, shedding the referential for something decidedly more personal and affecting. 

1. “Nobody” by Mitski

“I’ve been big and small, and big and small, and big and small again, and still nobody wants me.”

Mitski may be a meme, but that’s only because she hit it out of the ballpark here in every regard. Her discotheque is somehow even sadder than the one from “Dancing on My Own,” but twice as joyous, delivering truly arresting lyrics plucked straight from a distinguished poetry journal set to Chic-esque guitars and piano, creating a dazzling dichotomy between the divine and the depressing, begging you to break a sweat in your bedroom only to collapse on the bed in a fit of tears.