“No Goodbyes” is a pretty song, sure, but, again, I just have a hard time remembering it when Lipa has so many slammers in her catalog.
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5. “Boys Will Be Boys”
Like “Good in Bed,” “Boys Will Be Boys” is also jarring on Future Nostalgia —not for its sound but its sentiment. It’s a very serious song about the innate differences between men and women. That’s a great, powerful statement to make, but it’s a bit off in the context of this album, which up until “Boys Will Be Boys,” is a full-on dance party about frothier topics.
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4. “No Lie” with Sean Paul
Lipa adopts a bit of a reggae-tinged accent on this tropical pop track, which in itself is just off.
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3. “High” with Whethan
This sexed-up song from the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack never really takes off and has a beat drop that’s too muffled to properly enjoy.
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2 “Room for 2”
“Room for 2” is one of the only songs Lipa didn’t perform on her 2017 tour, and there’s a reason for that. It’s simply too damn sleepy, with a chorus that, sorry, sounds like a creepy children’s nursery rhyme.
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1. “My Love” with Wale, Major Lazer and Wiz Kid
The biggest crime here is that Lipa gets lost in the shuffle of her collaborators. That, and the fact the track is generic unz-unz fare. She has far better club songs. (Please see: My entire “best” list.)
Here’s a picture: It’s midnight, you’ve been tossing and turning for hours, but can’t fall asleep. When this happens to me, I find that a playlist of sleep songs really does help me cross over to that glorious REM cycle I’m craving. But it can’t just be any ballad. It has to be a mix of soft vocals, subdued production, and simple lyrics. You know, the stuff dreams are made of.
These 10 tracks, below, always do it for me. Try them out the next time you have insomnia and see if they help you bop to sleep:
“Let’s get unconscious, honey” Madonna sings on this nineties classic—and after listening to it, you may do just that. I mean that in the most flattering way, of course. With its bubbly ambient production and hazy vocal delivery, “Bedtime Story” is an ideal song for unwinding. You could call it the perfect…well, bedtime story.
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Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why”
Jones shot to the top of the charts in 2002 with this warm, sleepy ballad, and it still holds up nearly 20 years later. Her vocals are velvety smooth, and the piano production is equally as relaxing. The result? A downtempo track that feels like the first five minutes in a hot bubble bath.
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Sufjan Stevens, “The Dress Looks Nice on You”
Similar to “Don’t Know Why,” there’s a lulling quality to this Sufjan Stevens staple that will put you in a slumber-y mood. Maybe it’s the soft guitar plucks. Maybe it’s the soft synths in the background. Or Stevens’s muted vocals. It’s probably a combination of all three. Either way, this song lowered my blood pressure two points, so get into it.
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Charli and Carly are known for their uptempo party bangers, which is why it’s funny their only collaboration together is this haunting slow-jam. “Backseat” is the quintessential zone-out song—atmospheric and electronic, with a pulse that never gets too high. Even with its heavy synths and Auto-Tuned casing, you’ll fall right into your REM cycle.
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Beach House, “Take Care”
Beach House has a consistently chill discography, but “Take Care” is one of their finest tracks. It literally feels like riding down a winding road on a warm spring day. And you know what that means? Peace! And! Sleep!
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Any song on Kacey Musgraves’s Golden Hour album would work for this list (except maybe “High Horse”), but my personal favorite is “Oh, What A World,” a trippy country ballad with electronic tinges and twinkly production. It’s the sonic equivalent of a deep-sleep dream.
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Moore’s 2007 album Wild Hope was a significant departure from the candy-colored dance-pop that made her a star. In lieu of sugary-sweet hooks, she went full-on folk-acoustic—and the results were beautiful. Especially on “Extraordinary,” which sounds like the lazy Sunday morning you’ve always hoped for.
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Frou Frou, “Let Go”
For a brief period of time, Imogen Heap and producer Guy Sigsworth were a dream-pop duo known as Frou Frou. Their best song (which you no-doubt heard on soundtracks for The Holiday and Garden State) was “Let Go,” a synth-pop tune with luscious orchestral influence. It’s nothing short of stunning, and one of the most relaxing songs you’ll hear.
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Rihanna’s cover of this Tame Impala song is one of the highlights off her 2016 album Anti— and that’s saying something, because every track on that record is superb. Airy, experimental, and surprisingly soft, RiRi’s “Same Ol’ Mistakes” is a fever dream that will make you melt…then sleep.
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Britney Spears, “Out From Under”
Another Guy Sigsworth appearance. The iconic producer helped craft this rare Britney ballad—which is one of her best, might I add. She truly sounds angelic on the song. Listen once, and your stress level will drop significantly.
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Sleep is a $70 billion industry—we throw our money at a dreamier night’s rest, promise ourselves we’ll prioritize it, and then gripe when we’re still, inevitably, so tired. Despite our collective obsession with sleep, we seem totally unable to get more of it. In fact, we’re clocking fewer hours than ever. So, this month, we’re taking a look at what’s getting in the way—and what to do about it.
“Do What U Want” is a complete misfire. The song’s creepy lyrical content, mixed with who’s featured on it, just makes it un-listenable. So much so that Gaga removed it from streaming platforms in January 2019 in light of the sexual misconduct allegations against R.Kelly and went on to say she regrets releasing the song.
4. “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)”
Another filler track off Born This Way, “Highway Unicorn” sounds like six different songs rolled into one. The elements separated are actually quite good—the thumping bass-line at the beginning is magnetic—but together it’s a bit of a cluster.
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3. “Jewels N’ Drugs” (feat. · T.I., Too $hort, and Twista)
The same critique goes to “Jewels N’ Drugs,” Gaga’s bizarre foray into hip-hop that fans would rather forget.
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2. “Hey Girl” (feat. Florence Welch)
“Hey Girl” isn’t a terrible song; it’s just a disappointing one. For two powerhouses like Gaga and Florence Welch to come together and release a track that sounds like a tense phone call is just, I don’t know, a bummer? Here’s hoping they have a follow-up duet somewhere in their arsenals.
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1. “Christmas Tree”
“Christmas Tree” is arguably the only truly horrific song Gaga has ever released. With clanging techno beats and lyrics that turn holiday decorations into sexual puns, feel free to leave this off your Christmas playlist (and all your other playlists, too).
James Corden is busy welcoming his first kid into the world, so he had none other than Harry Styles fill in for him on the Late Late Show: Harry Styles. The former One Direction member guided the show pretty seamlessly and even got the Internet talking when he welcomed his rumored ex-girlfriend Kendall Jenner to set and filmed a segment of “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts,” a game in which players have to decide between answering tough questions or eating truly disgusting concoctions.
Things got interesting when Jenner read one question that Styles really didn’t want to respond to: When she asked what songs from his debut album were about her, he got super evasive. Jenner took the whole thing in stride and laughed, saying, “I’m dying to know this,” and for a second, it looked like Styles might answer. “So I’d say track…” he started, but then trailed off and grabbed a fork. He briefly turned to the audience and joked in disbelief, “What are we doing?” Eventually, he took a bite of the cod sperm and almost immediately spit it back out.
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The two of them joked around a lot, seeming to prove that there’s no bad blood after they sparked relationship rumors in 2016. And they were actually kind of forthcoming when it came to other questions: Jenner listed her siblings in order of best parenting skills (she stressed they were all “amazing,” but then revealed Rob was her number one, followed by Khloe, Kim, Kylie, and Kourtney.) She did chose to drink a salmon smoothie (ick) instead of sharing which supermodel is the most unlikeable and she boldly ate bull penis to avoid telling the world the name of the most surprising celebrity to slide into her DMS.
Styles, meanwhile, spilled that he has in fact watched episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians (he used the opportunity to poke fun at the Kardashian-Jenner clan, saying, “It was the one where you’re eating salads in the kitchen and then you all were shouting at each other.”) But when Jenner asked him to rank the albums of his former bandmates, he bit into a giant water scorpion before she could even finish the question. That’s definitely commitment.
You’ve probably noticed your friends starting to share their top Spotify songs of 2019, along with their other streaming habits, courtesy of Spotify Wrapped. It is, after all, the time of year when your feed is inundated with “best of” lists, summing up the last 12 months of entertainment and culture. And with 2019, we also happen to be at the end of a decade, which means even more content.
These lists are certainly fun to read (and argue about), but what we love even more is looking back at our own lives over the course of the past year—or ten. So how are your friends finding these fun facts and graphics about their music stats?
There are a couple of ways to do it. and they both involve Spotify Wrapped. First, you can simply go to spotify.com/wrapped and log in to your account. You’ll be greeted with all your streaming trends from the past year and more. “This year, your Wrapped will include the songs, albums, artists, and podcasts you discovered throughout 2019, plus the artists you streamed the most throughout the decade on Spotify. It’s ‘Wrapped’ the way you love it—but with more nostalgia than ever before,” the company said in a release.
For the first time this year, you’ll also be able to access Wrapped via your Spotify app. Once there, you’ll discover your top artist, top song through each season, top podcasts, genres, and total minutes streamed in 2019. Plus the results are easily shareable to your social media feeds, including Instagram Stories, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. You can also instantly add your most played songs to your library, if for some reason they’re not already there.
Perhaps the most shocking information will come via exactly how many minutes you’ve spent streaming Spotify in 2019—even if you want to keep that information to yourself.
Next up after #SpotifyWrapped in the year-end generator line will surely be the Instagram #TopNine, right?
That same note applies to “It Should Be Easy,” which turns BritBrit into a robot and features an EDM breakdown that sounds dated upon delivery.
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4. “Pretty Girls” (with Iggy Azalea)
“Pretty Girls” is, sadly, just a lukewarm attempt at recreating Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea’s song “Problem.” Everything from the chanty, bratty chorus to Azalea’s sleepy rap just feels off—and like a regression for Spears.
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3. “Tik Tik Boom” (feat. T.I.)
“Tik Tik Boom” is catchy, sure, but Spears’s voice is practically indiscernible in it, and the lyrics in T.I.’s verse are inexcusable. (“She like the way I eat her, beat her, beat her
Treat her like an animal somebody call PETA.” Um, excuse me?)
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2. “Chillin’ With You” (feat. Jamie Lynn)
It’s nice that Spears featured her sister Jamie Lynn on “Chillin’ With You,” but the song itself is a bit underwhelming. Matchy-matchy lyrics and a head-scratching chorus are ultimately the cause of its downfall.
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1. “Private Show”
Spears really stretched and played with her voice on her 2016 album, Glory. In some cases, like the song “What You Need,” she triumphs, and on others, well…I’ll let this track speak for itself. “Private Show,” unfortunately, is an unlistenable song—and I say that with the upmost love and respect for Britney Jean Spears. This one should’ve been left on the cutting room floor.
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Christopher Rosa is the staff entertainment writer at Glamour. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrosa92.
