songs i put on repeat so much in 2022 it should have been illegal

plus an entrance to a more raw, personal electric blue

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I love music. I deeply love music. Music is a major part of who I am and was the reason I found writing. I began to write because songs made me feel so much, that I simply had no choice but to let it out on paper.

Since starting Electric Blue, now almost two years ago, I have only very briefly mentioned music. Maybe once, through a playlist. But starting now, I’ll be honing back in on my love for it. It’s just too important for me to keep to myself.

Thus, tonight, I’ll be sharing with you the songs that held me hostage in 2022. Songs I was so arrestingly obsessed with, their effects should actually be medically studied. I’ll be counting down with a list to my most-played song of the year.

And also, you’ll see, my top three songs are hidden behind a paywall. Because to be honest, I reveal way too many embarrassing things lol. However, this is also a perfect segue into introducing a more raw side of Electric Blue that I’ll be reserving just for subscribers. Work that touches on the more personal and vulnerable. This is just the tip of the iceberg, we’ve got some juicy things in the works. I hope you’ll join me.

xx

alright, let’s goooooooo —

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13. WILL I EVER - ALICE DEEJAY

Alice Deejay is a forever icon. “Better Off Alone” is dancefloor royalty. One of the best songs ever made. But, after intensely listening to “Better Off Alone” way too many times, I had the urge to explore her other music. There I found the perfect sister track, “Will I Ever”.

I immediately ascend into DDR heaven. It’s just so cute and techno-y. There’s also some kind of 90’s naïveté laced into her lyrics and vocal delivery that fuse with the bouncy production to create an unreplicable feeling. We know too much now in 2022 to ever create another song like this. But sometimes you need to go back. Alice gave us this portal.

However, it still raises the very current and very real question — “will I ever fall in love”?

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12. HOTEL BREAKFAST - BLADEE

Lol. This was the song that finally got me into Bladee. I feel like I’m in a niche Bushwick meme when I listen to this song. Still trying to decide if that’s a good thing.

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11. FREAK - LEWIS CANCUT

This song is unbelievable and how I discovered this song makes it even better. I was at a Thai restaurant/bar in LA that was having a party and Tove Lo happened to be there. She ended up getting behind the DJ deck with four of her friends and next what I witnessed will be blazed in my mind for the rest of eternity. Each of them took turns plugging in their flash-drives, switching off DJing. It was like experiencing a dream-sequence. They were playing the best selection of music I had never heard. I tried not to embarrass myself by Shazaming in the intimate space, but once “Freak” came on, I lost my goddamn mind. I shot my phone to the sky and begged to the gods Shazam would be able to decipher this song. And omg, it did.

Every time I listen to this song I can’t believe my ears. It’s sleek, bouncy, and sexy. It’s so tuned to my exact desires of what I want to hear at a club it's actually insane. When the beat smashes in, I enter an alternate dimension — all that matters is feeling sexy, powerful, and determined. Anytime I’m on aux duties, especially with people I don’t know, I play this song.

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10. LVL1 - CO1N

First of all, I love music in Spanish. There will be many songs in Spanish on this list. I love music in any foreign language because when you listen you are truly going off the vibes. You get to decide what the song means by the way the music makes you feel.

CO1N links both Spanish and English in “LVL1” creating a futuristic pop masterpiece. The different breaks of this song are cataclysmic and intoxicating. The deconstructing beat along with their pining vocals makes the perfect concoction to transcend. The amount of times I played this song while strutting around the New York City subway system actually should have been illegal. Replay after replay after replay.

When it breaks into the chorus…..have you heard anything that makes you feel sexier!!!!!! I’m immediately transported into the best music video and I love feeling like I’m in a music video. This song reaches into both the futuristic and the classic. Then the last quarter of the song, holy shit….I can feel the lights all over my body and the wind blowing my hair as I’m half naked rolling around on the floor in front of a camera. Then it SMASHES into the line, “BABYYYY WILL YOU TREAT ME RIIIIIGHT”.

Your favorite popstar could literally never.

(except Charli)

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9. U + ME - COCO & CLAIR CLAIR

I first heard this song speed-walking through the lower east side in Manhattan and immediately stopped in my tracks as my body transformed into blingy sparkly heart. Coco & Clair Clair are the masters of cute, pompous, bedroom rap.

It’s giving female gaze. It’s giving matriarchy. It’s giving big silk bow in my hair looking cute as fuck!!!!! I LOVE CUTE RAP!!

The intersection of sexy and cute is my core, my epicenter, my objective purpose in life. Coco & Clair Clair hold the keys to that world. The girlies get itttt.

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8. ROMANTIKA - BRUTALISMUS3000

Brutalismus3000 combines my two favorite things — screaming women and hard, hard techno.

I lose all sense of the world when this song comes on. I reside only this massive fucking beat. The truth is, every Brutalismus3000 song makes me feel this way. I dream one day of going to a filthy underground rave in Berlin and hearing them live.

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7. BARBIE GIRL - AQUA

Ok yes, we know this song is good. We know this song is iconic. But do we really understand just how INCREDIBLE it is? This year it finally clicked. I had a “Barbie Girl” renaissance while parading around New York (yes, another song from my New York trip).

This song is out of this world. Her layered vocals are so sonically unique, and his are….well they definitely make me cringe, but it works for the role-play of the song. There’s this electric harmony this song achieves that creates a perfect ecstasy. It also feels incredibly current. This song is timeless. And again, it transports to a feeling of being sexy while being super fucking cute. Can you imagine, me running around New York City with this thumping in my ears? Ughhh cutest thing I’ve ever been.

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6. JUMPIN’ - DOSS

Doss….is unfathomably good. Scary good. Her production sears into my brain detonating into feral sonic euphoria.

“Jumpin’” is fucking crazy. The extended build up to the explosion of the chorus is INSANE. The first time I heard it I almost had to pull over my car because I nearly blacked out. Never have I heard a song so PLEASURABLE IN MY LIFE. Her sleek talking over the pounding beat….that’s it…..that’s all I need from music. Thank you. Even writing this out I’m getting riled up. This should be the song I play at my first dance at my wedding. I’m serious.

Also, listen to the whole track, the last break at the end is pure mind-numbing hypnosis.

Doss, you are my savior.

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5. HENTAI - ROSALÍA

Rosalía’s entire MOTOMAMI era has had me gripped by the neck. The visual/sonic world her team and her created has been impenetrably cohesive and clear. The sparing yet ravenous visuals, her experimental sound, and all the fun she seems to be having while performing made it infectious for me. There are so many songs on her album that stick out to me, but one, in particular, affected me the most.

“HENTAI”, with its stripped down production and obscene lyrics, captured me. I believe sex and divinity should often, if not always, be intertwined. It glints in the bed of this song. The escalation from a delicate, sweet beginning into a series of artillery-like drills sends me into oblivion. How the piano rains, sliding the erotic into heaven.

This music video and this song are pure genius.

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4. ARCADIA - LANA DEL REY

After her weirdo stint on Instagram a few years ago, I took a break from listening to Lana. (However, I did not stop listening to Norman Fucking Rockwell — that album means too much to me to ever stop listening to). However, this year after tiring out NFR, I grew curious of what I’d missed. I slowly crept back into listening to her new albums. My first entry point was “Dealer” and I was thoroughly shaken by its pain drenched beauty. Then, I found “Arcadia” —

It was during a time I would be leaving LA, in the coming months, and it made me miss it here even though I was still there. Now, as I am not in LA, it makes me miss it even more. Lana has a beautiful way of personifying California. With her signature nostalgia, trance-like sorrow, and natural glamour. This combination just flies during this song. My friend said it sounded like a grandma was singing it, I think maybe that’s the best part.

The haunting piano, her almost holy regard for the city, and her soft, defeated voice transport me. Whenever I need LA, anywhere I am, I play this song, and pretend I’m weaving through the open streets of Pasadena straight into Arcadia.

It makes me sad in a way that I know, that I am all too familiar with. A sadness you can’t pin down from where exactly it formed. It must simply be a melancholy for living. And Lana, so poetically and so effortlessly processes that world in her songs.

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Beyond this point, is reserved for those who you who take the plunge towards a more personal, deeper Electric Blue — ☆☆☆ hope to see you there

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