Hype Starts Here's Top 100 Songs of 2015 (100-71)

Hype Starts Here's Top 100 Songs of 2015

100. Anna---Will Butler***
        A sinewy jam built of fragile parts, Anna is powered by a wobbling synth, and requires little else to create its infectious groove.

99. Living My Life---Deerhunter
        The highlight from Deerhunter's latest might not get the people on their feet, but this mellow, contented stroll seems to be comprised entirely of sunshine.

98. Cruel Sport---Blanck Mass
        If there was any remaining doubt that Benjamin John Power, one half Fuck Buttons, is a crazy person, he obliterates it on his solo debut as Blanck Mass, and the steady build and chaotic break down of Cruel Sport are proof.

97. No Life For Me---Wavves X Cloud Nothings
        So that Wavves and Cloud Nothings combo album didn't really make good on its potential, but at least we have No Life For Me, a rousing, emotional pop punk standout in both of their catalogues.

96. The Way You'd Love Her--- Mac DeMarco
        With each subsequent release, Mac DeMarco sounds a little less wily, and decidedly more content. The Way serves as a perfect opener for Another One, a chilled-out ditty that seems to glide into and out of existence.

95. Little Nowhere Towns---The Tallest Man on Earth***
        As much as I wish Kristian Matsson would pick up his acoustic guitar again, there's little denying the beauty of this love-lorn, pocket-sized piano ballad.

94. Crosswords---Panda Bear
        Noah Lennox pairs the comely with the crude unlike anyone else in music today, Crosswords  utterly covered in sludge and grime, yet inviting and warm as can be.

93. Non-Violence---Battles
        Battles is at their best when the intensity is ramped up to 11, Non-Violence proving this point with otherworldly sounds that seem to tighten their grip around your ear drums with each passing minute.

92. Say---Mikal Cronin
        Taking the advice of one Christopher Walken, Cronin applies liberal cowbell to this overjoyed MCIII gem, dotting the parameters with brass and additional guitars.

91. Big Decisions---My Morning Jacket
        MMJ is always at war with themselves over wether they're more rock or country, and Big Decisions captures that dichotomy as well as any song in their career, a stadium-ready kiss of with slide guitars bringing an old-timey flavor.

90. Little Blue---Martin Courtney***
         Judging by his output with Real Estate and now his solo work, I'm willing to wager that Martin Courtney has never tasted coffee before, Little Blue's staycation sway prompting muscles to relax, and mouths to smile.

89. I Got Money---Raekwon feat. A$AP Rocky
        Over two decades in the game, and the Chef's still got it. He keeps the seat warm for one of the best verses of Rocky's young career, both rattled off over S1 and Jerry Wonda's infectious beat.

88. Faucet---Earl Sweatshirt
        From hip hop as celebration to therapy in only one song, Faucet wreaks of frustration and discomfort, but Sweatshirt sounds powerless to move, everything passing him by as if in strobe.

87. The Party Line---Belle and Sebastian***
        Now decades into their storied career, Belle and Sebastian tried something different on their latest LP, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, by turning into an electronica band, the steady, irrepressible bounce of The Party Line single-handedly justifying the change-up.

86. Elegy to the Void---Beach House
        Beach House released two albums in 2015, so get ready to see their name a few times on this list. Like their best songs, Elegy is immediately enveloping, capturing listeners in its gorgeous swirl.

85. Pony---Wavves
        The brat is back! No one does bummed-out surf/pop/punk rock quite like Nathan Williams, Pony opening up V with a giddy tempo and sizzling guitar lines that belie his stated devastation.

83. *tie* I'm the Man to Be and Happiness, Missouri---EL VY***
        What an odd and perfect pairing Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf turned out to be. The latter brings a muscular rumble to the music, affording Berninger's baritone a spunky backing on which to relay his typically oddball lyrics. Return to the Moon is best when it's at its most badass, and I can't decide with one of these tracks seems more intimidating in a fight. I'll take both.

82. Timothy---The Tallest Man on Earth
        Timothy is cloaked in gold, it's zippy, resplendent fiddle part repeated almost endlessly with its impact never truly waining, Matsson's emotive performance elevating the proceedings.

81. Losers---The Weeknd feat. Labrinth
        As much as I loved I Can't Feel My Face the first couple times I heard it, Losers is the track from The Weeknd's latest that actually stuck with me, a meek, jazzy opening hiding a sucker punch of synths that rests just ahead.

80. No Cities to Love---Sleater-Kinney***
         Rather that plunge right into the power chord pool that's responsible for most of Sleater-Kinney's finest moments, No Cities employs a wiggly guitar line during its verses, which helps the emphatic chorus hit that much harder.

78. *tie* I Can't Explain and Point of No Return---Surfer Blood
        2015 will go down as the year Surfer Blood gave up on being Weezer, and morphed into The Smiths. Just try listening to these clear-throated, open hearted six-string ballads and come away with any other impression, I Can't Explain surfing atop cresting waves of electric guitar, while Point of No Return keeps things closer to the chest, but is imbued with just as much comfy bliss.

77. Alone---Mikal Cronin
       Alternatively softer and louder than anything else on MCIII despite its modest three-and-a-half minute runtime, Cronin practically whispers through the track's alluring opening before an eager electric guitar brings all the walls crashing down.

76. Pretty Pimpim---Kurt Vile
        There's a mysteriousness to Pretty Pimpin that's impossible to put a finger on, a repetitious five minutes powered by Vile's psychedelic lyrics, and a hoard of secrets that it will never tell.

74. *tie* Lifted Up (1985) and Until We Can't (Let's Go)---Passion Pit***
        Passion Pit songs often sound like they're rejoicing while the lyrics tell a vastly different story, but on these two highlights from this year's Kindred, they finally match. Lifted celebrates the love of a friend with a sky-scraping chorus, while Until is a caffeinated party anthem that could blow out speakers.

73. Somewhere Tonight---Beach House
        You can't say I didn't warn you. This slow-motion waltz closes out Thank Your Lucky Stars on a conflicted note, all rosey beauty with an eerily sharp organ piercing through the surface.

72. Send My Love (To Your New Lover)---Adele***###
        Send My Love is like an alternate universe in and of itself, picturing a better world wherein Adele painted with more colors than pain and steely resolve, this 25 standout proving gracious, catchy, and... almost happy?

71. Black Lake---Björk
        The elongated centerpiece of Björk's heartbroken Vulnicura, Black Lake is an enormous ode to loss and hurt, a cavernous sound world for the legendary Swed's singular voice to mourn with no holds bared.

***Pictured Artist

###Unavailable on Spotify

Hype Starts Here's Top 50 Albums of 2015

50-41

40-31

30-21

20-11

11-1

Hype Starts Here's Top 100 Songs of 2015

100-71

70-46

45-26

25-11

10-1

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Release Date: 12-17-2015)

        A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... a filthy, exhausted, and frustrated Luke Skywalker attempted to lift his X-Wing out of the treacherous Dagobah swamp using only the force. With victory in the palm on his hand, the Jedi in training experienced a lapse in focus and confidence, and watched his star ship sink back down into the murky depths. When Yoda, his wise, pint-sized master, implored him to try again, Luke simply answered "You ask the impossible." I've never felt quite as much like young Skywalker as I do right now, two days removed from my first viewing of J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and attempting to write a worthwhile film review without spoiling ANYTHING. The film series that George Lucas brought to life back in 1977 has developed a following that, more so than any other in the history of cinema, borders on religion. Were I to ruin any of the events that take place in the movie, I could be force-choked in front of a crowd of people, and no one would lift a finger. And frankly, I would deserve it. In my near-28 years on the Earth system, I cannot recall a single film generating this level of feverish anticipation, and experiencing the movie myself only reiterated the importance of going in with as little pre-existing knowledge as possible. Difficult as it may prove, I hereby promise to not reveal a single thing about The Force Awakens. This is no laughing matter; there will only be doing, and strictly no trying.

        The seventh entry into everyone's favorite intergalactic saga begins with... wait, damn it (is it a spoiler to say that, at one point, it begins?). The inclusion of a summary in any movie review serves the simple purpose of cluing a reader into wether they might be interested in the story at hand, which makes The Force Awakens the perfect review in which to bypass one entirely. There have already been 6+ hours of Star Wars movies for everyone to decide if they're in or out on this space-set odyssey (13+ if you really want to include those other ones), and I've got a funny feeling that revealing the whereabouts of C-3PO isn't really going to move the needle one way or the other on that issue. People know Star Wars the way that they know language, not as something that they learned at a specific point, but a tale that's been recited since near infancy, and thereby wholly entrenched in the brain trust of popular culture.

        This makes adding anything to the universe both terrifying and tantalizing, but I'm here to tell you that those reservations can finally be set aside. The Force Awakens might not be a perfect movie, but I would argue that its casting actually is, ushering in a new slate of heros and villains to love and despise for years to come. It's a very rare thing to actually witness a star be born on screen in a single two-hour sitting, but in Episode VII, it happens twice-over. Where in the galaxy has Daisy Ridley been hiding all this time? The young Brit is like a magnet to the eyeballs, and if fans have retroactively appropriated Leia as a feminist icon, wait until they get a load of her performance as Rey. Then there's John Boyega, who vacillates between wonder, fear, snark, and joy without any discernible effort. Anyone starring in a Star Wars movie will inevitably have their name permanently etched in the history of cinema (Jake Lloyd, anyone?), but this is different. As of this writing, both are only 23 years old, and if both aren't legitimate movie stars for at least the next decade, you can freeze me in carbonite.

        When it's all said and done, it's Ridley and Boyega who truly stick with you, but that's not to say the other new additions aren't sublime. Oscar Isaac makes the most of his limited screen time as... wait... never mind. Then there's Kylo Ren, perhaps the film's most intriguing and multi-faceted new character, whose every action will stir up feverish conversation and debate until Episode VIII arrives in 2017. No such controversy will exist for BB-8, that soccer ball of unstoppable adorableness who gives Wall-e a true roll for his money as to who's the cutest robot in the last decade of film. None of these glorious new characters would exist without Lawrence Kasdan, the scribe behind both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, whose name we have not heard in a long, long time. He brings the same understanding of how to create interplay between lovable characters into this film as he did the last two, and Abrams' crisp visual aesthetic and preference toward practical effects make him unthinkably well-suited to steer the ship. Fans of the original series may take umbrage with his pacing, which is fast enough to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, but with his preternatural understanding of how to create endearing characters and immediately engross an audience, there's little denying that he was the perfect person to bring Star Wars into 2015.

        Yes, everything that's new sparkles and shines, but some of the old stuff keeps The Force Awakens from fully ascending to the delirious heights of its predecessors. I'm of course only allowed to dip my toes in the waters of this idea without ruining my spoiler-free promise, but suffice to say, I think the further this new series moves away from its forbearers, the better. This is perhaps a bigger problem than I can really get into here, but this movie is capable of putting that kind of critical thinking on the back-burner for the majority of its runtime. As anyone who's already seen the film can attest, there's strikingly little that can be elaborated upon without drawing some severe ire from all who have not yet had the pleasure, but the latest entry is pretty damn good, and left me with three impressions that I feel safe in sharing: the new cast is phenomenal, I wanted to watch it again almost immediately, and it genuinely felt like Star Wars, and that's a presence I have not felt since... well, this. That's right people; we're home.

Grade: A-

HypeCast: Celebrating Legendary Directors... Because Star Wars Still isn't Out

        Hello, and welcome back to the HypeCast, a film-centric podcast hosted by Collin Sherwood Elwyn and Tyler Mitchell. In today's episode, Star Wars still hasn't come out! To distract us from our painful longing to return to a galaxy far, far away, Tyler and Collin revisit a slew of films from classic directors. We begin with Jaws, the movie that essentially pioneered the modern blockbuster, and is therefore responsible for both Man of Steel and Transformers: Age of Extinction. Keeping it in the 70's, we discuss Serpico, a slightly overrated film by the wildly underrated Sidney Lumet. Fast forward two-and-a-half decades, and here arrives 1999's Sweet and Lowdown, an old-timey Jazz biopic that Collin affectionately refers to as "Woody Allen's version of This is Spinal Tap." Tyler isn't the world's biggest fan of the Woodman, but he sure as hell loves Mulholland Drive, a film that is tied with every other David Lynch picture for The Weirdest Movie Ever Made Award. After years worth of badgering, Tyler gives in and finally checks out A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers' 1960's midwest suburban remake of the Book of Job. Sadly, Collin will have to keep hammering away if he ever wants his co-host to revisit The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's much loved/maligned pseudo examination of Scientology's origins. The films are discussed chronologically in order of their release, and in related news, Collin and Tyler don't know how time works, and the former can't tell the difference between history and fiction. Oh well! These directors sure are great... and The Force Awakens comes out tomorrow! Warning: a few naughty words are contained within. Continue at your own risk. Here We Go!



Podcast Itinerary:
0:00-17:45---Jaws
17:49-28:45---Serpico
28:46-38:55---Sweet and Lowdown
38:56-50:05---Mulholland Drive
50:06-1:01:08---A Serious Man
1:01:09-1:11:25---The Master

Brooklyn (Limited Release Date: 11-4-2015)

        The last 20+ years of technological advancements have been the death knell for a great number of things, and yes, this claim goes beyond the demise of Blockbuster Video. Privacy has become almost impossible to maintain, old notions of stardom and how it is attained have withered and died, and immediate access to digital reservoirs of statistics and data have changed the way we consider and converse. Perhaps the most jarring shift into our new world is the relative eradication of space. While it would take literal magic to render hundreds of miles of distance superfluous, global communication is not only available, but immediate, a concept that would have melted the brains of previous generations to even consider. The immigrants from all over the globe that essentially served as the bedrock for modern America were made to feel that distance, to be devastated by that distance, and to be changed by that distance. The new film Brooklyn may be devoid of any cloying "when I was a young girl..." framing devise that would make this point more literal, but it doesn't need it. You feel that space in every frame.

        Saoirse Ronan stars as Eilis, a young woman living in the Irish countryside in the 1950's who wants more out of life than to merely serve at the local shop. With the help of her sister and a few church higher-ups, Eilis secures a position in a boarding house in Brooklyn, as well as a gig at a city department store. It's not long after her oceanic journey that homesickness sets in, with an entire world swirling around her at twice the speed to which she'd become acclimated, letters from home taking eons to arrive. A glimmer of hope shows itself in the form of a suitor, an Italian boy named Tony (Emory Cohen) with a surplus of charm, patience, and flattery to his name. The vast expanse of New York and America at large is only starting to make sense when word from overseas requires Eilis to return home, and in the process casts doubt upon just where home really is anymore.

        Like its fellow Best Picture aspirant Spotlight, Brooklyn is nothing if not basic. No cameras zoom around with kinetic zest, no character is revealed to have secret devious motives, and the edits all come at a steady, unglamorous pace. What director John Crowley's movie does have, however, is class, one of the hardest things for a film to attain without becoming stale or overly familiar. It bares the stately, wholesome worldview shared by many of the films released in the era it attempts to recreate, finding beauty in simple framing, and subtle narrative shifts. Crowley's in perfect lockstep with Nick Hornby, the famed author of the books behind the movies High Fidelity and About a Boy who's really made a name for himself as a screen writer in the last handful of years, having been the pen behind both An Education and Wild. His script is wistful, romantic, and filled with soul, never overstepping the boundary into sappiness, leaving Crowley and (more importantly) the actors enough space to leave equally indelible marks on the story.

        And leave marks they do. The aforementioned Emory would come off as smarmy if his performance wasn't so delicate, and Jim Broadbent brings an almost angelic quality to his miniature role as Eilis' stoic guardian, Father Flood. The people who color in the margins are uniformly strong, but this is a true coming out party for Ronan. Her character's nervous energy and soft-spoken nature disallow anything showy from of her performance, and the Oscar nominee is up to the task, conveying wells of emotion and contemplation with the subtlest of gestures. The movie at large is similarly in love with her work, cinematographer Yves Bélanger constantly honing in on her face, enamored with every smile and glance. Ronan has had several winners to her name ever since her coming out party in 2007's Atonement, but Brooklyn announces her graduation from child actor to one of the world's premiere English-speaking thespians.

         The specificity of her performance is worth the price of admission, but Crowley isn't satisfied to rest on his laurels. Brooklyn is the movie that takes place after all the ones we've already seen; after Will Hunting goes to see about a girl, and after Ben Braddock gets on that bus with Elaine Robinson. Rather than focus on the courage and consideration that inspired her initial move, it captures the feeling of being a little person in a big, bright world, and the terror of being so far removed from everything you've ever known and loved. It's a frightening existence that technology has largely hidden from the modern world, but somehow Ronan, Crowley, and crew know how to take you back to that place, and make you feel the miles of salt water that separate one home from another. I can't even imagine how affecting it would be to someone who had lived through the era which the film depicts; it did a number on me as is.

Grade: A-

HypeCast: The Good Dinosaur, The Night Before, Brooklyn, and More

        Hello, and welcome back to the HypeCast, a film-centric podcast hosted by Collin Sherwood Elwyn and Tyler Mitchell. In today's episode, the guys catch up after an agonizing two-week separation, wherein they coped by watching an absurd amount of movies released in the year 2015. Tyler snoops around and finds a hidden gem on Netflix entitled People Places Things, a heartfelt indie dramedy starring the only member of Flight of the Concords with any staying power, Jemaine Clement. Collin is a little less stoked about both Dope and The Good Dinosaur, and wonders aloud about the validity of specifically courting white viewers (I'm looking at you, El Bueno Dino!). But wait! There's still a pair of unexpected winners to discuss! Tyler employes the L word while describing Guy Richie's box office blunder The Man From U.N.C.L.E., while Collin bares similarly warm-hearted feelings toward Seth Rogen's little-seen Christmas comedy The Night Before. Plus, if you listen reeeeeeeeally closely, you can hear Tyler knock over his microphone in the first handful of minutes! Warning: a few naughty words are contained within. Continue at your own risk. Here We Go!



Podcast Itinerary:
0:00-6:05---The Nation Board of Review's 2015 Award Winners
6:06-19:50---Brooklyn
19:51-29:06---The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
29:07-38:10---Dope
38:11-48:14---The Night Before
48:15-54:26---People Places Things
54:27-1:07:37---The Good Dinosaur

Spotlight (Limited Release Date: 11-6-2015)

        There is nothing inherently surprising about the events that take place in Tom McCarthy’s new movie Spotlight. The story chronicles the Boston Herald’s 2001 investigation into the Catholic Church’s decades-spanning cover-up of sexual abuse and molestation, a truth that has since been brought to light in a very public way. The investigators investigate, the writers write, and higher-ups in the fields of law, politics, religion, and media all pursue a variety of disparate agendas. No single character steps wildly out of line in either their personal or professional lives, each diligently working on behalf of a cause, which results in turning the movie into that rarest of things. While most of the very best flicks require largely unforeseen twists and turns to keep their audience engaged, Spotlight employs no such tomfoolery. It stands proudly as top-notch filmmaking and story telling by carefully and confidently relaying an important narrative, and requires nary a gasp or head turn to keep you fully engrossed on every imaginable level.

        Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d'Arcy James star as the Boston Herald’s Spotlight team, a group of reporters tasked with conducting prolonged, thorough investigations in Massachusetts' state capitol, only turning in a very small handful of pieces per year in order to maintain the meticulousness of their fact-checking. The paper at large is shaken by the arrival of Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), an impossibly stoic outsider to the city with a reputation for budgetary rigor and no non-sense leadership. Sensing an untapped story, Baron calls into question a recent report on the alleged nefarious actions of a local priest, and not only demands the Spotlight team to suspend their current project in favor accumulating further information, but also sets out to sue the church in order to receive pertinent documents that have since been legally classified. The local Cardinal takes umbrage with the Globe’s further snooping, setting in motion a struggle to reveal the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

        McCarthy is also searching for a purified form of truth, which he locates by refusing to dress up the tale with either showy directorial choices or exaggerated portrayals of the true-life events. His guiding hand may be almost invisible, but it’s just as absolute; there might be little-to-no figurative fireworks in the film’s runtime, but everything keeps clicking so perfectly into place you might mistake it for a two-hour long Rube Goldberg machine. The script, written by McCarthy and Josh Singer and almost assured the Best Original Screenplay Oscar come February, is similarly economic, and has room only for scenes that advance the plot, or deepen our understanding. Other creative teams might have juiced up the tragic nature of the events with loudly delivered scenes of amped up, theatrical emotion (see: Oscar Bait). McCarthy and crew understand the intrinsic weight of the story, and their all-encompassing restraint only ensures that the whole thing hits that much harder.

        This emotional underplaying is made possible by the film’s decision to focus on the reporters much more often than the perpetrators, a choice that is bolstered at every turn by a stellar cast. While Ruffalo appears to be reissuing his Foxcatcher performance for further evaluation, Keaton and McAdams are subtle and strong from first frame to last. Schreiber is something different; he under-sells Barron to such an extent that he might even be over-selling. It’s that rare performance where an actor does so breathtakingly little that every slight movement seems gigantic in nature. His Zen-fueled self-presentation never flags, and neither does the movie's. They each know what needs to be done, and proceed to do it with steady, sure-minded confidence. As it turns out, that kind of thing can be a spectacle unto itself, no unforeseen twists or figurative fireworks required.

Grade: A

HypeCast: The Best and Worst of Film Adaptations

        Hello, and welcome back to the HypeCast, a film-centric podcast hosted by Collin Sherwood Elwyn and Tyler Mitchell. In today's episode, we dig deep into the HypeCast vault, and uncover the first ever podcast that wasn't aired within a week or two of its recording. That's right, you can now finally hear references to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 that seem oblivious to the fact that the film has already seen the light of day. Our December (see: early June) pod explores what makes a good film adaption, and why accomplished storytellers are consistently so attracted to the tried and true. The episode includes Tyler's insensible distrust of American athletes, entirely too much discussion about the Harry Potter series, and some major hand-wringing over what could make The Shining even more special. Warning: a few naughty words are contained within. Continue at your own risk. Here We Go!