Ride - cali, 2017

"My favourite song is Cali. I love the optimistic, summer like feel of the track, with the little guitar flourishes and loose beat. There is also an insanely wonderful bit towards the end where there is a double tap on the snare that leads into the joyous second half of the song, where the band let rip and fly, playing with the melody of the song and taking it to new levels."

Fleet Foxes - kept woman, 2017

"Crack-Up is enveloping enough to get lost in, and it doesn't always offer easy entry points. For every contained and elegantly pretty ballad like "Kept Woman," there's a byzantine engine of ambition like the title track, which closes Crack-Up with a burst of energy worthy of its title. But the point never gets lost that these songs chronicle the pursuit of contentment, however frustrated — and take great care to linger in the beauty that crops up along the way."

Jome - mountains, 2017

"Jome's 'Mountains' conveys a message of redemption and growth, using the metaphor of transforming a city into gold and rising above obstacles to signify overcoming past mistakes and achieving greatness together."

Shout Out Louds - jumbo jet, 2017

"Shout Out Louds is a Swedish indie rock band from Stockholm. The band formed in 2001 and five years after its inception, it played many festivals throughout Europe and slowly gained quite a following."

Jome - thread, 2017

"a dreamy, atmospheric track with a runtime of 2:42, blending indie pop and electronic elements"

Gorillaz - andromeda, 2017

"It was the only place in the whole of the town that played soul music, so there's a connection between the music I used to hear there and the feeling and spirit of the music I was trying to evoke."

Slowdive - don't know why, 2017

"It’s strange to call Slowdive a comeback album, because it seems so sure of itself. Instead, it feels like a completely logical next step in their discography. The record fits snugly inside the band’s canon, so much so that it makes the 22 years since Pygmalion all the more difficult to believe. The band have delivered a fresh dream-pop sound that is still uniquely Slowdive. Perhaps they’re fortunate that their return does not follow their magnum opus, but Slowdive delivers nearly everything their fans desire in a return: familiarity, innovation, and vast atmospheres to get lost in."

Slowdive - no longer making time, 2017

"There is the occasional moment when the mix seems a little off, most notably the tinny drums on "No Longer Making Time," but mostly the album delivers exactly what a Slowdive fan would want. Lots of songs to dream to (the ethereal, Cocteau Twins-sounding "Don't Know Why," the calming "Sugar for the Pill"), get lost in (the noisy "Go Get It"), and swoon along with (the positively dreamy pop song "Everyone Knows")."

Slowdive - slomo, 2017

"The way they blurred the clear vocal and instrumental is intriguing. Sometimes I feel like dream pop is a way to echo your voice in the brain and repetitively make you believe whatever your brain says is your heart says. I think this song is quite a straightforward one, expressing the longing for love and seeking tenderness. The way Slomo addresses the universal emotions is nothing dramatically different but quite convincing."

The Smith Street Band - song for you, 2017

"Song for You" by The Smith Street Band is a track from their 2017 album More Scared of You Than You Are of Me, released on April 7, 2017. It’s a song with indie and emo influences, written by Wil Wagner and produced by Jeff Rosenstock. The lyrics explore themes of rejection, insecurity, and unrequited love, with lines like “Rejection’s a constant, bitterness comes with age” and “One day there’ll be a song for you,” reflecting Wagner’s raw, emotional storytelling.

The Flaming Lips - sunrise eyes of the young, 2017

"Coyne envisions a recreational wonderdrug from a not-so-distant future that induces a deep sleep, where the user's subconscious is transported into a fairy tale, childhood dreamscape. When they wake, they find themselves cured of life's personal and emotional problems."

Strand Of Oaks - passing out, 2017

“Passing Out” is far from the psychedelic blackholes or fire-breathing rock moments on Hard Love. Rather, it’s a reflective, mellow, and bleary track that sounds like a mixture of ’80s indie and early ’90s Creation Records material. Which is to say, if you happened to spend your formative years driving through Showalter’s adopted home state listening to that type of music like I did, “Passing Out” is a familiar and welcome direction for Strand Of Oaks to be exploring, an autumnal meditation perfect for this time of year."

Fazerdaze - misread, 2017

"Morningside, the debut album from Auckland’s Fazerdaze, is a dream-pop record with both of its feet on the ground. You can let its tide-like synths and effortless guitar wash over you like a breezy, late-summer haze, or you can pull on the album’s narrative thread and follow Amelia Murray’s eminently relatable message about young life’s transitional moments."

The National - nobody else will be there, 2017

"It’s about marriages falling apart," frontman Matt Berninger said of it. "I’m happily married, but marriage is hard and my wife and I are writing the lyrics together about our own struggles, and it’s difficult to write, but it’s saving my marriage."

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - stay, 2017

"From the initial rush to the all-too-familiar crash, the Pains have spent the better part of a decade charting the highs and lows of young love. But Berman, like many of us, isn’t quite so young anymore. What happens when all the love in your life is no longer as fleeting as a three-minute pop tune? Echo of Pleasure tries to get to the heart of the matter."

Fazerdaze - last to sleep, 2017

"Side one kicks off with ‘Last to Sleep’, which sets the bar inordinately high. It begins with a deceptively simple drum, bass, guitar construction with Amelia trademark vocal stamping its mark from the outset. It is a vocal style at once relaxed but emphatic, laid back but precise, relaxed but urgent. The song has its own precise internal momentum and builds as keyboard layers are added."

Spain - tangerine, 2017

"Josh Haden (born 1968 in New York City) is an American musician and singer. He is the founder, bassist and singer of the group Spain. Haden is the son of the late Charlie Haden and Ellen David."

Red Sleeping Beauty - we are magic, 2017

"Swedish pop trio, Red Sleeping Beauty had been dormant for 19 years before releasing Kristina, named after lead singer Kristina Borg who has been fighting breast cancer for the last few years. “We Are Magic” is the first single since Borg defeated cancer. The song continues the band’s perfect mixture of indie pop with vintage synthesizers."

Alvvays - dreams tonite live, 2017

"Dreams Tonite" forms the basis of the album's "fantasy breakup arc," with the protagonist questioning whether or not they would still be attracted to their significant other if meeting in the present, rather than the past. The song first became a part of the group's live setlist in early 2016. The band debuted the song online as a pre-release single for Antisocialites on July 25, 2017. The band promoted the song with a performance on CBS Sunday Morning in the U.S. "Dreams Tonite" became one of the band's most popular tunes; as of September 2024, the song has over 105 million streams on Spotify."

Sufjan Stevens - blue bucket of gold live, 2017

“Blue Bucket of Gold” is a piano-led lamentation that finds Sufjan reaching out to friends, family, and God for support. The song ends with a meditative swirl of electronics that overwhelms the senses and commandeers the track. Of this song, Sufjan explained in an interview: “I didn’t know (my mom) well in a lot of ways, and I didn’t know how to say goodbye on the last track with articulation. So I quit playing piano and vocals and just stopped. I wanted to surrender her to the beyond with noises that sound bigger than just me.”