David Bowie’s Blackstar topped the Village Voice 2016 Pazz & Jop album list, but he doesn’t show up until #8 on the singles list. To be fair, he shows up at #9 as well, with the album’s title track.
At #8 is ‘Lazarus,’ probably the best song on Blackstar, and given the added meaning it took on following Bowie’s death, probably worthy of a much higher spot on this list. Come on, Solange ain’t got nothing on Bowie.
Welcome to ‘Desnudate,’ in which Christina Aguilera embraces her Hispanic heritage by finding various ways to say “get naked” in Spanish.
The 2010 album Bionic, from which this morsel hails, was an infamous flop for Aguilera, coming after her career highlight Back to Basics and before her career resurrecting stint on The Voice.
Donald Glover is a TV god, as his stint on Community and auteurship of Atlanta make clear.
I find Childish Gambino more of a mixed bag. I adored his first full-length album, Camp, but couldn’t get through his second, Because the Internet. I like what I’ve heard of “Awaken, My Love!” so far and need to check it out in full.
The seventh best single of 2016, according to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll, is the title track to Leonard Cohen’s final album, You Want It Darker.
As with David Bowie’s #1 spot on the album list, you have to figure Cohen shows up this high because he shook off this mortal coil. He’s a critical favorite anyway, but nothing invites praise like dying.
Tied for the fifth spot on Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll of the best 2016 singles is Mitski’s ‘Your Best American Girl.’ Mitski’s fourth studio album, Puberty 2, shows up at #15 on the albums list.
Who is Mitski, you ask? Well, I did, anyway. She is a half-Japanese, New York-based singer-songwriter. This track is about meeting an American man and realizing they aren’t compatible enough to stay together.
