Innanet James made an explosive introduction with “Black.” There is unhinged energy packed into every word he delivers, and his presence on this debut song is commanding. Every now and then, though, an artist appears like a blinding flash of light. It starts off as intrigue, requires extended exposure, and eventually morphs into a more personal attachment. Most of the time, becoming a fan of a new artist is a gradual process.
This song-especially the second half-is 1,000 thread count silk sheet luxury. He apparently spent over $50,000 of his own money on an orchestra for Free TC and it was money well spent. Who is that with the gorgeous falsetto, soaring over the strings like a white dove through a crystal blue sky? That’s goddamn Ty Dolla $ign. Powerful stuff, but just wait until the song switches up for it’s second movement. He’s delivering a message of hope even as he is behind bars, and showing off his great voice too. TC, Ty Dolla $ign’s incarcerated brother, opens the song by singing down the prison phone. “Miracle/Wherever” is the sprawling, poignant mid-point-eight minutes long, but engaging all the way through. If you thought Ty Dolla $ign was all ratchet club bangers (and let’s be clear: dude makes some of the best ratchet club bangers), one listen to his new album Free TC should make you change your mind. Clearly, that’s something that we’re still trying to figure out. The downside, of course, is that it becomes harder to distinguish what’s really important. The upside: we’ve got so much fucking music. Adele is still selling CDs, but most young music fans are committed to a stream-only lifestyle, and with access to that much music comes a change in how we view things. As soon as you fall in love with a song, something else comes along and steals your attention. Not just from the album to the single, but from the six-month hit to the two-week hit. This year, probably more than any other in our lifetime, we saw a shift in music consumption. Everyone on the team was attached to different singles, and toward the end of one meeting about this list, we just decided, “Fuck it, let’s just make it 100.” Maybe not the best decision, but here we are. We had around 300, and the goal was to cut it to 50, but it got more and more difficult. Making this list, we just stopped wanting to cut any more songs. We know that you don’t want to click through 100 slides, and we don’t blame you. By the time we realized this, it was too late. There is no good reason that this list should be 100 songs long.
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