| 1 | Frozen Crown | "The Shieldmaiden" | single | Even when I believed years progressed toward ends, I mean individually, each, |
| 2 | Scavenger Hunt | "Ghosts" | single | these final weeks seemed naggingly wrong. |
| 3 | Mint Julep | "Still Waters" | single | It doesn't help that lists get made earlier and earlier, but unless we agree to make this year's list 10 or 100 years from now, |
| 4 | No Frills Twins | "Lonely With You" | single | January releases and December releases will never quite be equal. |
| 5 | Aldaria | "When the Time Has Come" | single | And thus, perhaps, these instant lists should simply be honest in their instancy. |
| 6 | Therion | "Temple of New Jerusalem" | single | Here is best song in the world for this 4:02, an opera run through a car-masher with dragons painted on the sides. |
| 7 | Glaare | "Surrender/Control" | single | Here is how buzz and sigh and crash can be reconciled. |
| 8 | Kesha | "This Is Me (From The Greatest Showman)" | single | Here is what it sounds like when you're invulnerable. |
| 9 | Homebound | "Bound to Be" | single | Here is what it sounds like when you're inevitable, |
| 10 | The Gospel Youth | "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" | single | impish, |
| 11 | Toy Cars | "Cold" | single | unguarded and preemptively broken, |
| 12 | Fistula | "Mongoloid" | single | hideous in joy, |
| 13 | Mattia Cupelli | "Earth 2049" | single | adrift between becalmed and bespoke. |
| 14 | angela | "Dream on" | Beyond | Here is what it sounded like when I fell in love with Japanese pop, |
| 15 | LUNA SEA | "Brand New Days" | Luv | and what it sounded like when I fell in love with visual kei, |
| 16 | MOSHIMO | "ミルクティー" | ミルクティー / 白 2 | and what it will sound like when the avatars fall in love with us in return. |
| 17 | Ev0lution | "Bodak Yellow" | single | This is what the kids are listening to these days. Sort of. |
| 18 | Hjärna Waves | "Yorha" | single | Or the zombies the kids became, anyway. |
| 19 | Sugarland | "Still The Same" | single | This is what the cleanest dirt roads shine like, |
| 20 | Francesca Michielin | "Tropicale" | single | and how they lead around the world, |
| 21 | Fast Animals and Slow Kids | "Annabelle" | single | and how the world awaits you. |
| 22 | 八三夭 | "眉飛色舞PLUS (feat. 鄭秀文)" | single | I mean, it's not like they're waiting for you, of course they have their own lives, |
| 23 | 柯有倫 | "因為愛你" | single | but when you get there, you'll see what I mean. |
| 24 | SpeXial | "Buddy buddy(偶像劇《終極一班5》主題曲)" | Buddy buddy | You'll walk in through the gates, and somebody will whistle, and the flashmob welcome-dance will begin. |
| 25 | Venom | "100 Miles To Hell" | 100 Miles To Hell +2 | You'll walk in through the gates of hell, and a flashmob welcome-dance will begin even there. |
| 26 | Ost+Front | "Arm & Reich" | single | The more places I go, the more adaptable I imagine I become. |
| 27 | Störte.Priester | "Hör auf Dein Herz (Unplugged)" | single | This is likely to be self-deception, but it's a good way to be wrong. |
| 28 | Huntza | "Elurretan" | Lumak 2 | The soul of visiting is basking in the combination of curiosity and ignorance that lets you think you could belong among strangers. |
| 29 | Strung Out | "Crows" | single | They have guitars and coffee, you could learn their words for other things. |
| 30 | KOIT TOOME | "On Suures Linnas Vaikne" | single | The signs are either telling you you can't park here, or telling you you can. |
| 31 | Reverence | "Fire Lord" | Foreverence | The first trick of translation is arriving on foot so that guessing which one is something you only have to do for fun. |
| 32 | We Butter The Bread With Butter | "Mans Not Hot" | single | The second trick is understanding why it matters here how people park, because any tiny thing might be profoundly and revealingly different. |
| 33 | Sins In Vain | "The End of Heartache" | single | They have had centuries of their own dreams; |
| 34 | The Animal In Me | "Calling It Quits" | Helping Won't Help | You have a guidebook and somebody's apartment they aren't supposed to only be renting to you for a week. |
| 35 | Main-De-Gloire | "The Bloody Idol" | single | But a week is enough for terrors and epiphanies. |
| 36 | A Broken Silence | "Come Alive with Me" | All The Way Down | These weeks out of time are infolded universes wrapped around Federalist fantasies. |
| 37 | American Avenue | "We Were Here" | single | These nomadisms are native to our lands. |
| 38 | Andromida | "Conflict" | single | Stop thinking of every week as a scouting operation for some future occupation. |
| 39 | Word Clock | "Heralds" | Heralds | You are here now. |
| 40 | Allame | "Kısır Döngü" | single | You are not shopping for trophies to display on the shelves of the past, |
| 41 | Reykjavíkurdætur | "Hvað er málið" | single | or the spray from the next primordial waterfall, |
| 42 | Malaika | "Control" | single | you are walking on the planet we share, |
| 43 | Psychework | "Ghost Patrol" | single | in glittering space |
| 44 | Alfahanne | "Dödsmaskin" | single | that has pulverized a trillion other rocks like ours, |
| 45 | Freiheit | "Repair The Past" | Dark Life EP 4 | but not this one yet. |