#If I turn it into a fire text gif I think people would also gloss over and assume it says “REBLOG MY ART” or something lol

[cristalconnors]

TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020

20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER

“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”

It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet. 

19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT

“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”

“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow? 

18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA

“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”

Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.  

17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS

“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”

“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career. 

16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA

“Hannah do no harm...”

While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”

15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE

“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”

When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward. 

14. “3AM”- HAIM

“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”

On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.

13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM

“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”

I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.

12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA

“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”

Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”

11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA

“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”

Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it. 

10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC

“I think about you all the time...”

Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:

When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?

9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS

“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”

“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.

8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS

“Can you just find him for me?”

Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine? 

7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS

“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”

Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either. 

6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA

“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”

Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too. 

5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY

“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”

As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”

4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX

“I only threw this party for you...”

As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?

3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION

“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”

Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world? 

2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR

“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”

If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay. 

1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE

“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”

We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want. 

[midnxghtsunwrites]

LAID OFF

PAIRING —

Andy Barber x Black Reader

SUMMARY —

You get fired from your workplace of eleven years and Andy tries to comfort you.

WARNINGS —

Just good ol' fluff and angst, ignorant people doing ignorant things — yakwtfgo

It was midday when Andy received a text from you saying that you were on your way home from work. As far as he knows, your workday definitely does not end at twelve pm. Immediately, he called you and the conversation went as vague as he expected.

"Why are you going home, sweetheart? You okay?" He questions. You can't see him but you can tell that he has those crinkles in between his eyebrows that usually come with concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Do we have anything on our grocery list? I'm gonna stop by Walmart on the way home." He doesn't have a chance to answer before you cut him off, "Never mind, I'll just go to the house and grab it."

"Y/N —"

You hung up.

A day of shopping went by with you trying to take your mind off of what happened just hours before. Your boss of eleven years called you into his office, handed you a termination packet, a crappy explanation, and a company pen.

A pen.

"It has your name on it," He'd quipped.

As you now stand in your bathroom, twisting your hair into bantu knots, you wish you would've stabbed that motherfucker in the eye with that pen. You're absolutely taken aback by his audacity — it followed you throughout the day.

Even when your son came home from school and greeted you. You were in the kitchen at that point, aggressively stirring up some chicken soup — your comfort food. He gave you the weirdest look and retreated to his room.

During dinner (without Andy) you listened intently as your son recounted his day, trying to get your mind off of how much time you'd wasted in that company.

Now, you can hear the security system speak that the front door is open. Andy's home.

You try not to think about the packet you left on the bed — he has to know somehow and you don't want to say it out loud. Part of you feels he'll be disappointed in you.

When he enters the bathroom, the packet in hand and a thoughtful look on his face, you try not to let it faze you and get back to spraying leave in conditioner in your hair.

You can feel his stare burning into the side of your face.

You blink and meet his eye in the mirror, "I don't wanna talk about it."

"We have to talk about it." His voice is calmer than you thought it would be.

"No, Andy, we don't have to do anything — I, on the other hand, have to finish these bantu knots that I started way too late in the day. Should've done this tomorrow. Not like I have anything else to do —"

Andy scoffs, "Y/N, stop doing your hair for a minute and talk to me."

"What?" You question, beyond irritated, "What is there to possibly talk about? Huh? I wasn't good enough at my job and I lost it. There's not much else to it, Andy."

"Y/N —"

"No." You deadpan, slamming the bottle down on the granite counter top and turning to face your husband, "I gave eleven years of my life to that place. Just to get a letter of termination and a pen. A stupid pen? Is that what my life has come to? They could've had the decency to send me to fricking Jamaica or some shit — they're good for it."

Andy leans back against the wall and watches you as you rant.

"If I'm that replaceable, why the fuck didn't they just fire me ten years ago when they saw what a crap job I was doing?" You know you're a great employee but the rage is pouring off you in waves, "I was sacrificing my weekends with family to go to that bum place — for terrible fucking pay, mind you — and this is what they do? This is how they pay me back for wasting a decade of my life? I'm just so —" A frustrated groan finishes your statement.

"And I know you're disappointed in me. You're disappointed in the fact that I didn't work hard enough. I didn't fight hard enough. Well, fuck that. I'm fucking over it."

"Are you?"

"Yes, I'm over it." You reiterate.

Your husband knows you too well to think that you're over it. He counts down from five in his head.

Five..

Four..

Three..

Two..

One..

"Is it because I'm black?" You ask, suddenly.

Right on cue. Andy whistles lowly, proud of himself.

"Fucking hell," You scoff as if just realizing something, "I knew there was some shady shit when they took us to a damn plantation for a mixer and only asked me to bring food."

Your husband's head shoots up in surprise, "Wait, they did that? Why didn't you tell me?"

You shake your head, "I wasn't thinking too much of it. Plus, it was like six years ago — I was naive as hell."

Andy furrows his brows in thought, "What was the reason they gave for firing you?"

"My disruptive behavior. Apparently, they don't like when someone accidentally drops their stapler." Saying it out loud pissed you off even more.

"Those assholes." Andy comes to your defense, biting his bottom lip, irritated. Finally, he nods, "Okay. We'll sue for wrongful termination. I'll call someone in the morning so we can get this sorted out."

You pause for a moment, glad your husband is there to fight by you and defend you. A part of you is tempted to do just that — get a couple thousand from that hating ass job. But no, you don't even want to think about them anymore.

Begrudgingly, you shake your head, "Nah, baby, I just wanna wash my hands of them. I'll send out my resume in the morning and I'll probably take a couple more days to mope, but I don't wanna think about them anymore. Just the fact that I'm jobless."

"There's my girl," Andy jokes as he wraps his arms around you. Your hair is haphazard on your head seeing as you haven't finished the knots yet, but Andy doesn't care. He's obsessed with you either way. "And I'm not disappointed in you, Y/N. You're the best at what you do. Them letting you go is their loss and they'll definitely realize what they're missing out on when you're out there doing your own shit. We have enough in our savings to spare — you can start that restaurant you've been dreaming about."

"And you'll be my greeter when you're not putting criminals in jail?" You ask, sweetly, a bright smile growing on your face.

Andy pecks your glossed lips, "Wouldn't have it any other way." He taps your ass, "Now, how about I help you finish your hair, we can drink some hot cocoa, I can give you a massage. Plus, I can take tomorrow off, we can pull Y/S/N out of school and we can go on a hike to clear your mind."

You almost cry at how much Andy is willing to do for you.

"Ugh, how did I get so lucky?" You rest your hand on his chest, right where your name is tattooed and pull him down to kiss you.

He pulls away, slightly, his beautiful blue eyes lighting up with such joy and admiration, "I ask myself that everyday."

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