| 1 | tricot | "Setsuyakuka" | Kabuku - EP 5 | Spiky j-anti-pop. |
| 2 | Bankrupt | "Tizenöt Perc" | Kívülállók | Cuddly-shouty Hungarian shout-along punk. |
| 3 | Fallujah | "Face of Death" | Dreamless | Dramatic symphonic progressive only-semi-dead metal with monster roaring. |
| 4 | Orden Ogan | "To the End" | The Book of Ogan (Audio Version) | Quick, muscular power-death-metal. But if this is the "Audio" version, I assume the other version involves actual edible cheese. |
| 5 | Lacuna Coil | "Trip the Darkness" | Dark Adrenaline | Gothic metal songwriting as obelisk sculpting. |
| 6 | Withem | "Arrhythmia" | single | Sometimes progressive metal is NWOBM with more low-end. |
| 7 | Jorn | "I Know There's Something Going On" | single | In retrospect, a power-metal cover of this song was inevitable. |
| 8 | White Lung | "Below" | single | You go far enough through post-punk, you end up back in punk again. |
| 9 | Wussy | "Ceremony" | Ceremony +1 | The Feelies + heroism. |
| 10 | Owen Rabbit | "Weeds" | single | Soul music for angels and horror and typewriter. |
| 11 | Lisbon | "Shark" | single | Clattering, keening dance-rock. |
| 12 | Darkestrah | "Gleaming Madness" | Turan | Convulsive epic pagan metal. |
| 13 | Dulce María | "No Sé Llorar" | single | Give your Latin heart a break. |
| 14 | Kany Garcia | "Aquí" | single | Shimmer-swirling Puerto Rican country duet. |
| 15 | Pinkshinyultrablast | "Blaster" | Happy Songs for Happy Zombies 4 | Exactly what it says. |
| 16 | Nemesea | "Time to Make It" | Uprise | Gothic symphonic metal as anthemic joy-blast pop. |
| 17 | Ingrid Michaelson | "Hell No" | single | Fight song. (Plus a little "Torn".) |
| 18 | Martina McBride | "Diamond" | Reckless | Steel guitar, Keith Urban, brandished drawl and metaphor with the delicacy of a lift gate. |
| 19 | Frankie Ballard | "Cigarette" | single | Modern country rock is kind of basically the same jeans Eddie Money wore. |
| 20 | Samantha Glass | "Bending Images in the Center" | Preparation for a Spot in the World | Modulated geometry. |
| 21 | Saosin | "Control and The Urge to Pray" | single | Pop-djent-punk. |
| 22 | Abnormality | "Swarm" | Mechanisms of Omniscience | Dessicated thrash metal. |
| 23 | Mantus | "Zwischen den Nächten" | Refugium | Sisters of German Mercy. |
| 24 | Imatem | "Hold You (RMX) - Remastered" | Project Pitchfork Präsentiert: Home + Journey | Double reissue of seminal German industrial gothic crunch. |
| 25 | Tiny Moving Parts | "Common Cold" | single | About as close as anybody still comes to what Emo once meant. |
| 26 | Pity Sex | "September" | White Hot Moon | Tweemo. |
| 27 | Thief Club | "Fragile Eyes" | Just Give Up | Wheemo. |
| 28 | The Hotelier | "Soft Animal" | single | If Harriet Records had had pop punk bands, they would have sounded like this. |
| 29 | Dowsing | "Wasted on Hate" | Okay | I'm totally fine with more bands that sound like "Harnessed in Slums" by Archers of Loaf. |
| 30 | Henrietta | "Paper Wings" | Paper Wings | Half emo, half Americana, like maybe pop-punk as imagined by Thin White Rope. |
| 31 | Carnabells | "The Belle of the Strutters' Ball" | single | Oasis + The Bluebells? But that sounds ghastly and this sounds charming. |
| 32 | Fejd | "Härjaren" | single | Fejd used to be metal-adjacent Swedish neofolk, but seem to have casually marauded into galloping pagan folk metal. |
| 33 | Muzzy | "Junction Seven" | single | I guess it's just another tempo-mapped zapstep track, but I like math. |
| 34 | Schammasch | "The World Destroyed by Water" | Triangle | Experimental black metal's triple-album devil's-advocate response to Dream Theater's The Astonishing. |
| 35 | Gackt | "Arrow" | Last Moon | Definitive visual-kei j-metal. |
| 36 | Velvet Eden | "Fetus" | Requiem 5 | German gothic industrial, except actually Japanese. |
| 37 | ME THE TIGER | "Ambulance Disco Light" | Me the Tiger | DIY CHVRCHES. |
| 38 | KMPFSPRT | "Lichter" | Intervention | Tear up something nobody actually needed. |
| 39 | Besserbitch | "Hate Anthem" | single | Like a female Too Much Joy from Stockholm. |
| 40 | The Gospel Youth | "Guidelines" | single | Dangerously close to a "Shut Up and Dance" ripoff. Also deliriously. |
| 41 | Kyla La Grange | "Hummingbird" | single | The bridge from Grimes to CHVRCHES. |
| 42 | Lipgloss Twins | "Doodle" | single | Relentlessly ebullient PC Music plastic-rainbow toy-pop. |
| 43 | Aminata | "Bridges" | single | Latvian synth-strut. |
| 44 | Kerli | "Blossom" | single | Kerli's Estonian version goes introspective and spectral this time. |
| 45 | Dalshabet | "Someone Like U" | Naturalness | In a way, all of K-pop is Prince's legacy. |
| 46 | Haken | "Earthrise" | Affinity | Haken don't sound like Rush, except when they do, but they make me feel like I felt listening to a new Rush album in the 80s, when I felt like I was listening to things I didn't know were possible. |
| 47 | Tinchy Stryder | "Story Song" | 360º / The Cloud 9 LP | Mesmerizing, dominating, ensemble-cast, recombinant grime as arena-pop for streets as arenas. |
| 48 | Luca Brasi | "Say It Back" | If This Is All We're Going to Be | Another rock-album-of-the-year contender: In Tasmania, they remember that punk rock bands are rock bands. |
| 49 | Thegiornalisti | "Tra la strada e le stelle" | single | In a piazza, somewhere, our table is waiting patiently for us in the sun. |