On “Leave a Trace,” Iain Cook and Martin Doherty’s fine-tuned swirls of synthesizer are just begging for a killer hook, and Mayberry - singing with more swagger than ever before - hammers it home. Instead, they followed the same blueprint as before, and built an even better shrine for Lauren Mayberry’s majestic vocals. “Flesh Without Blood” is that in a nutshell - a sky-scraping hook pulled out of unintelligible vocals, served over an underbelly of humming guitar.Ĭhvrches didn’t build a new foundation on their sophomore album Every Open Eye. In the end, she delivered the pop some of her fans were craving, without sacrificing the weirdness that made her a cult star. The artist named Claire Boucher kept us guessing in the album’s long gestation period, sharing “Go,” an EDM banger she’d written for Rihanna, and then admitting she’d scrapped an entire album’s worth of material. There were several otherworldly pop bangers on Grimes’ Art Angels, but we’re glad she decided to let this stratospheric kiss-off kick off the album cycle. Musgraves, who many have compared to a modern-day Loretta Lynn, scored a triumphant note with this banjo-backed warning to keep out of other people’s business. As usual, it’s done in her tell-it-like-you-see-it style. The duo’s tale of budding romance struck a universal chord, and bringing rapper Farruko in as a guest gave it just the right touch of edge. What got to us was the mix of tropical and pop, not to mention romance and dance. With its official video alone garnering over 220 million YouTube views, this song was a smash. “N-s want my spot and don’t deserve it,” he huffs and puffs, giving the rest of us enough reason to shoo away the haters on one of the year’s best shit-talking records. “Know Yourself” finds Drake flashing several mean mugs at the man in the mirror for the Boi-1da co produced confidence booster, which appeared on Drizzy’s album-mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. The lyric “Running through the 6 with my woes” popularized squad goals before Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” video even touched timelines. Her sultry voice is a perfect match for the come-hither lyrics, and the thumping beat ensures we’ll be dancing to this at clubs for quite some time. Selena Gomez has talked about wanting a more grown-up image/sound for some time, and she got it with her sexy Revival single “Good For You” featuring A$AP Rocky. Within and in-between the crunchy chorus, Barnett weaves a first person one-act about a sad sack that’s so sharp, it’s hard to believe her every time she sings, “I’ll only disappoint you.”ġ9. Since her early EPs, fans knew Courtney Barnett had bars (okay, lyrics), but on the resident banger from her debut album, she proved she had killer hooks, too. McCartney’s whimsical melody pairs nicely with the tale of getting drunk and spazzing out. Rihanna’s long-awaited album still isn’t here, but she did give 2015 a collaboration - Rihanna, Kanye West and Sir Paul McCartney - that no one saw coming. Even more surprising than the genre and generation-spanning trio’s existence is the fact that the song itself is incredible. Originals on his LP aside, his version of “Tennessee Whiskey” remains an album highlight, showing off a falsetto that is, in fact, as smooth as Tennessee whiskey.Ģ1. 1 on the Billboard 200 and get a Grammy nod for Album of the Year. HIs CMA duet of the song with Justin Timberlake knocked down walls for the singer, who saw his album shoot to No. Stapleton turned a lot of heads with his blues-laden nod to George Jones on Traveller (David Allan Coe originally recorded the song, but Jones’ 1983 version is the biggest hit). 2 on Alternative Songs) and gave us plenty of reason to anticipate another dramatic LP reinvention from the ol’ L.A. What did Beck do four months after his downtempo melancholy LP Morning Phase won Album of the Year? Release an irresistible radio-ready track with the refrain, “d-d-d-dreams, she’s making me high!” “Dreams” benefited from Beck’s Grammy momentum to dominate its radio lane (it peaked at No. This is the rare quiet breakout hit of 2015. But what makes it beautiful is the wounded vocal melody set against gentle guitar strumming and understated strings. In one four-minute track, Cam manages to pack in frustration, despair, anguish, and torment.