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19. Whitney - No Woman

I regret to inform everyone that despite the grave and utter disrespect of trying to record music under the name "Whitney,"No Woman" is a very excellent song. Musical Kodachrome, "No Woman" is wandering nostalgia, a road trip with no set destination and the sound of a man only certain that he loves his own freedom, at least for right now. Warm, lazy, and sublime; a song even more potent when staring down the barrel of a long, dark winter.

  18. Maxwell - All The Ways Love Can Feel

R&B mostly poked and prodded this year. It picked at scabs that hadn't even begun to heal. It looked mostly inward as a tool of reflection against crushing external forces. Simply put, it was political, hardly defined by the smooth textures and ear-pleasing harmonies that it typically brings mind. Maxwell, on the other hand, was chill. And that's not a bad thing in the slightest. He was R&B's sexy and stately Romeo, ungodly handsome in a classic black suit in press photos and projecting a sensuous calm when most others grew thorns. Frankly, we needed him, and boy does blackSUMMERSnight sound plush. That's not to say he's simple minded - like Miguel the year before him, manners of love were hardly earthbound. On the standout opener, "All The Ways Love Can Feel" he's smack dab in the middle of examining love in matters of universal law. The band swells, his falsetto soars; it's 5 minutes in a sea of pillows. "Class is in session tonight." Call me Mr. Perfect Attendance.

17. Dawn Richard - Lazarus

The first of two songs with this title on the list, Dawn's take on the biblical figure is the quiet centerpiece on an album built up of tiny rebellions. Once a member of  Danity Kane, Richard has now assumed the mantle of R&B shapeshifter, a surprisingly adept creative force who has covertly shaken up R&B formulas and married the genre to emerging tech and an omnivorous sense of musical fluidity. Without a major label, Dawn is free to be as prolific and boundless in following the whims of her vast imagination as she wants to be. The result is songs like "Lazarus" a weird grab bag of orchestral elements, vibraphones, and a kaleidoscope of bubbling synths and breakbeats. It's a glitchy version of Bjork's Vespertine era, recalling the melody of "Heirloom" and placing Dawn somewhere just outside the mortal coil. 

My ignorance is a human thing

My ascension is a spirit thing

I can be both in the same

I didn't change, I became

16. Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam - A 1000 Times

Hamilton Leithauser's signature howl has always carried with it a sense of madness. He's perpetually uncorked, a geyser of emotion that strains every note as if he can force his tale of unrequited love into reality by sheer force of will. Here, he's magnified by some unrepentant snare drums and then supplemented with a sense of wistful romanticism via Rostam's trademark baroque plumes. It's a melancholy song, veiled in a little bit of delusion and the pang of an ignored heart. A hill worth dying on.

15. Blood Orange - Best To You (Feat. Empress Of)

As lively as the Afro-pop percussion is on this track, make no mistake, this is a sad song. The beat is so frantic, so relentless in its sunny optimism that it almost makes Lorely Rodriguez sound like a tragic heroine instead of just tragic. "Best To You" is about giving everything to a one-sided relationship and losing every aspect of yourself in the process. Conformity and expectation erases identity when it's inconvenient; "I can't be the girl you want but I can be the thing you throw away." There are few moments in music this year as dynamic as Rodriguez on that bridge section, the cadence of "I feel my bones/I feel my bones/I feel my bones crack in your arms" racing ahead of the beat and then eventually finding a home in its tiny pockets. Dev Hynes is the nagging internal monologue here, asking "Do you really want to?" to a person willing to strip herself of pride and self in the name of an unhealthy love. That beat isn't happy anymore; it's a ticking clock.

14. Tinashe - Sacrifices

Tinashe, the world's most misunderstood pop star, is mad. She should be! Clearly trapped in a cold war with a label that sees her as more of a brainless pop vixen than the strange and moody R&B provocateur that she is, Tinashe has been in release date purgatory for over a year now as radio-friendly singles (Chris Brown! Bikinis!) have all failed to make any sort of dent in the charts. Tinashe's having trouble carving out a public persona, her stunning good looks somehow working against her, belying her own artistic ambitions and projecting an unfortunate air of disposability.

Seemingly at a stalemate, Tinashe shrewdly found a solution to her Gordian Knot, releasing Nightride, presumably the dark half of Joyride's forthcoming pop gloss. Billed as a mixtape, Nightride is the Tinashe that exists in the shadows, behind closed bedroom doors, and alongside unmarked highways. It's dark, ambient, moody, aggressive, and above all, arty. There's nary a radio hit here, instead it's an extension of a natural persona that her most adamant fans (ahem...me) have long known is the element she's most confident and ambitious within. It shouldn't have to be this hard.

NIghtride is slick and distant by design. Even on "Sacrifices," which by all accounts is a pure sex jam, she's essentially impenetrable, burying X-rated lyrics underneath a Metro Boomin beat that threatens to swallow them whole. It's not an accident - the pre-chorus boasts, "It's not my M.O. to fall in love/ but fuckin' 'round with me is dangerous." Eventually the veneer cracks; to love her is to maybe never really know her.

13. Bon Iver - 29 #Strafford APTS

The patch of static that obscures the delivery of "alimony butterflies" is reason enough to include this song. Combining the intimacy of For Emma, the robust and dense instrumentation of Bon Iver, Bon Iver, and the fearless experimentation that defines 22, A Million, "29 #Strafford APTS" finds Justin Vernon exploring a new kind of austere beauty, one that weaves in an out of clarity and hides as much as it delineates. It's another instance of Vernon coining his own phrases to convey feelings and thoughts that could only exist in clouds before. The track is a sensory bubble and a personal mythology that unravels with decay. It's faded paper, burnt embers and chalk dust; really just a flicker that burns bright and then extinguishes.

12. Rihanna - Woo

Many were disappointed in Anti the night it dropped unexpectedly and unceremoniously free to download. I was not one of them. In the grand scheme of female pop star deconstructions I knew instantly that it would be iconic. It was messy. It pissed people off. It was an artist statement that spat on almost everything that came before it. Rihanna was sad, disorganized and maybe a little pretentious. It felt like American Life, an album that practically begged to be misunderstood the second it dropped. On a macro-level, it was also easily the best thing Rihanna's ever done, the type of next phase re-imaging that pop stars can start to build legacies on. To be universally loved from the start honestly would have meant failure.

"Woo" was my favorite. Perhaps the most aggressively anti-pop on the album, the entire song is see-saw nausea, a lumbering lead foot of a beat, and atonal guitar chords stretched to infinity. There's no hook, outside of some Travis Scott "woos" but it's completely captivating for its 4-minute run out of something like sheer hypnosis. Rihanna's filtered vocals are devastating, all stone-faced resentment and clenched teeth anger. Most singers (the technically "good" ones) can't do this. It's brazenly defiant; a bloodshot eyeball of a pop song.

  11. Miranda Lambert - Highway Vagabond

Those thinking Miranda Lambert would approach her first post-divorce album with a sledgehammer and a handful of sequels to "Gunpower and Lead" will be sorely disappointed. Instead, Miranda gave us a 24-track double album more concerned with resignation and growth than spite and vengeance. It's a thoughtful rebuke to expectations, one more concerned with sending a "fuck you" to modern country radio than to her ex-husband. There's plenty of self-deprecation, plenty of good old-fashioned country weepers and plenty of showstopping moments and career-defining fits of songwriting. Stunning opener "Runnin' Just in Case" could have been plucked off Joshua Tree. A smattering of tracks have a ethereal gossamer coating that recalls Daniel Lanois' work on Emmylou Harris' renaissance album, Wrecking Ball.

It's an abundance of top-shelf material, but it's oddly enough the breezy road trip stomper "Highway Vagabond" that emerges as the standout. Speaking the the album's theme of restlessness, "Vagabond" puts Miranda as the enthusiastic nomad over a lively drum groove, reverb-heavy guitars and a thudding bass progression. It's the odd duck track, a little taste of pot smoke experimentation in a genre that tends to villainize renegades far more frequently than it claims to revere them.

10. Chance The Rapper - Same Drugs

Chance was joy in a year where there wasn't much of it. Coloring Book was a spiritual experience, an album that surrendered in helplessness to a higher power and basked in the exaltation of it. It's rarer that I don't get choked up watching one of his live performances - there's just so much excitement in the mere act of existing. His ESPYs tribute to Muhammad Ali damn near destroyed me. Frankly speaking, Chance is as good a reminder as any of why we should actually want to be alive. 

"Same Drugs" isn't really about drugs. It's about growing apart, the sense of loss that comes with growing up, and the enduring legacy of things that were. It's simple in sound compared to some of the other more ecstatic tracks on the mixtape - a simple acoustic piano carries him most of the way before a swelling, rewinding midsection sends the song to the heavens - but it's also, in its own quiet way, the most affecting. There's inherent sadness of display, but Chance finds something achingly beautiful in something difficult and confronts a challenge with a compassionate embrace. "Don't forget the happy thoughts/all you need is happy thoughts," he sings right before its climax. It's not an easy sentiment to model yourself after these days. He keeps finding a way to maintain the beaming smile you see on his album cover and I'm grateful there's that.

  9. David Bowie - Lazarus

That first Friday of January when Blackstar came out I had a lengthy conversation with a coworker about how terrific it was. Amazing that an artist a year shy of 70 was still creating music that didn't sound like anything he'd done before. I listened to it all weekend. On Monday he was gone. I don't have anything to say about Bowie that hasn't been said by people far more knowledgeable and encyclopedic about his career than I have already said. I knew him simply as a genius, someone who was unapologetic in his creativity and oddness, one half of the greatest celebrity couple of all time and someone who in his own way paved the way for me and what it meant to exist as a man in the modern world. I, weirdly, consider 1995's "Strangers When We Meet" to be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. He was cool in a way cool typically wasn't, at least not before.

When I brought myself to watch the "Lazarus" video a few days later I cried. It was his goodbye, at least to a mortal plane. The first line is "Look up here, I'm in heaven" and it only gets more poignant and haunting from there. The jazz instrumentation shuffles forward in noir shadows, his voice creaks and crags with weathered intensity, and the end explodes into an harmonious cacophony, a final fireworks display of noise and life. It's scary, in the way that death probably is. It's also beautiful, an elegiac confrontation with a final chapter that finds solace and pacification in the end with a rapt bluebird metaphor. "Ain't that just like me."

  8. Frank Ocean - Ivy

Like a thumb scrolling though an iPhone camera roll, Frank's long-awaited Blonde was somehow rooted in both memory and short attention spans. An interrupted mind, Blonde is almost always painfully nostalgic, painting three dimensional portraits of lost loves and hard lessons that end up seemingly tossed away at random by new distractions and new tangents. You can see it working as it moves, his voice and instrumentation just following the impulses of the brain and that tricky way the mind processes complex thoughts with no concern for narrative through-lines. Even at his most fluid, Ocean is still quite the scene setter. "Ivy" is a dream-like diary entry, all California beach haze and faded sunsets. Reflecting on early love and heartbreak, Ocean paints in broad strokes and details alike, reconciling raw nerve hurt and misery with the wistful Telephoto lens of time. "Ivy" snaps out of its navel gazing with a distorted squeal and a rejection of complete thoughts and resolute process. On to the next mini universe.

  7. Angel Olsen - Sister

No surprise that an album that saw Angel Olsen transform from lo-fi folky into whatever the hell she wants to be has its best moment teeming with existential thumb twiddling. From the shimmering pop star of "Intern" to her stint as as a revved-up Roy Orbison on "Shut Up and Kiss Me," My Woman saw Olsen set her own bar and outright reject any "sad girl" pigeonhole previously bestowed upon her. Also not a shocker that she pulls everything off effortlessly, delivering a pop-rock album that's almost disconcerting in its apparent ease. Credit to Olsen's commanding vibrato that highlight "Sister" makes it about 4 and a half minutes deep until you realize you've kind of just been listening to rambling. Olsen is introspective and longing here, hitting the same notes and shuffling down life's road. Then everything changes. A whirlwind climax arrives without warning and suddenly Olsen finds herself smack dab in the middle of the best Fleetwood Mac song you've never heard, the "All my life I thought had changed' refrain clanking against heartstrings before giving out to a jaw-dropping crescendo of guitar shredding and piano plinks. It's a true rock star moment from someone who could still find a way to slip out a back door unnoticed. It's whatever the non-garish version of a mic drop is.

  6. Anohni - Drone Bomb Me

There is absolutely nothing subtle about "Drone Bomb Me" and that's the point. Usually political art is wrapped in allegory but Anohni and the whole of the excellent Hopelessness are fixated on the dangerous weapon known as empathy. There's no wiggle room here, no metaphors there to mask and assuage guilt. It's an album built on disgust for passive politics and a call to arms for compassion. It should be annoying, but the connection is just too strong. Anchored by a devastating music video with a wonderful starring performance from Naomi Campbell, "Drone Bomb Me" provides a chaotic Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never production and forces the listener to hear Anohni sing from the perspective of a 9-year-old pleading to be the next target of a drone bomb after the death of her family by one. With lines like "Blow my head off/ explore my crystal guts/ lay my purple on the grass," Anohini creates an uncomfortable situation for the listener as she puts a distinct character behind an abstract reality of modern warfare. It's upsetting, weirdly gorgeous, and necessary - a form of protest music that goes beyond object reality and into a realm of overwhelming mindfulness. More crucial than ever, even as that Hopelessness alum title feels even more relevant than it did in March.

5. Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

The thing about "You Want It Darker" is that it's not a question. A month shy of his death, Leonard Cohen released his last masterpiece, a hauntingly sparse and frank exploration of mortality, morality and legacy. On the title track, Cohen remains as weighty as ever, teeing up a direct confrontation with God and questioning a powerful being whom by all accounts has designed and fated man to an unending cycle of decay, entropy and suffering. Cohen's gravel voice is its own kind of death, a force that speaks with authority and a collected sense of calm resignation in the dwindling days of life. There's also a direct link to Cohen's Jewish heritage as multiple lyrics allude to the Holocaust ("a million candles burning for a hope that never came") and the haunting sounds of a Synagogue choir from Montreal. We hear them sing "Hineni, Hineni," which translates from Hebrew to "Here I am." Of course the same can be read as "You want me to die, I'll do it." After all, what choice do we have? Like Bowie, it's the gift of a genius able to reflect and create art around the context of their own last chapters. Not only that, but with the creative spirit and musical approach of someone clearly not creatively tapped. I can't think of anything more powerful.

4. Solange - Cranes In The Sky

It goes without saying 2016 was tough. More than tough, it was psychologically damaging for most of us. From police-sanctioned murders, to the Pulse nightclub shooting to a hellish election cycle that ushered forth a daily stream of unthinkable new realities, 2016 was the year that "self-care" became an actual means of survival.

"Cranes in the Sky" is about the struggle to do the work, the constant obstructions that cloud our pathways to recovery and the endless short-term solutions we find ourselves seeking just to make it through the day. It's one of the earlier tracks on Solange's breakthrough A Seat at the Table, an album that goes on to find power in a black existence currently on the front lines of a cultural war. It's a warm track even as it aches with frustration and exhaustion, its relaxed beat giving Solange all the space she needs to say her peace and to start looking for it too.

3. Kanye West - Ultralight Beam (Feat. Chance The Rapper, The-Dream, Kelly Price, & Kirk Franklin)

"We don't want no devils in the house! We want The Lord!" "Ultralight Beam" is gospel turned ghostly. As long as Kanye is on the track it's gospel with its guts scooped out, his presence at the top a mournful benediction that urges us to "Pray for Paris. Pray for the parents" with none of the fervor or deeply felt soul typically associated with the genre. Kanye, in the year of our Lord 2016 where he arguably became indefensible before checking into the hospital for what appeared to a mental breakdown, is mournful, a shell of himself 12 years removed from "Jesus Walks." The choir comes in to raise the rafters and you get goosebumps but then he disappears quietly into one of the many glacial pockets of silence. 

It's like Kanye's bowing out for those who deserve a higher power, the three wisemen of featured guests who can actually provide the listener some balm of salvation. Kelly Price comes in and provides a sorrowful pulse, followed closely by scene stealer Chance The Rapper, who sounds like a literal angel form Heaven rapping about the salvation he found in his daughter between Arthur references an a warm brass section that follows him like sun rays into the empty church Kanye started off in. Kirk Franklin appears for the closing prayer and then the choir turns ominous again, possibly a forecast for the war-with-himself conceit Kanye outlines for the otherwise very scattershot Life of Pablo. "Ultralight Beam" is all silence. It offers spaces for doubt and self-hate and dissatisfaction to fester and forces them to be exorcised by glimmers of light. He can't provide those himself. He needs a community. He needs a church outside of himself.

2. Beyoncé - All Night

Of the many (and I mean many) showstopping moments on Beyoncé's monumental, career-defining Lemonade, there are some obvious standouts. The overtly political and controversial "Formation," "Sorry" and its bouncing. detached hostility, and of course, the seemingly stream-of-consciousness peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of the tinkling "Hold Up." But it's "All Night" that my mind (no, my heart) goes to when I think of the project. In the end Lemonade is about forgiveness and "All Night" is the sterling beacon of grounded optimism the album needs to succeed. Multi-faceted in approach, Lemonade turns what could be a simple narrative about infidelity and weaves in an endless array of microcosms related to heritage, familial pathologies, black experience and most importantly, black womanhood and the emotional gauntlet black women are expected to endure in silence. It's heavy stuff for Beyoncé, and while I don't need to write any more on what's been exhaustively covered by many, I still can work myself into tears thinking about the powerful denouement that leads into the conclusion. Grandmother, the alchemist. You spun gold out of this hard life. Conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live. Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen. Broke the curse with your own two hands.

There's a lot of emotion to absorb from track 1 to 11 and "All Night" is the much-needed release, a stunningly beautiful declaration of love and forgiveness that mends fences and moves courageously forward on leaps of faith and foundations of love built up over time like a fortress. Armed with a "Spottieottiedopaliscious" horn sample, soaring strings and Bey's own songbird falsetto, "All Night" is unapologetically bright, the song that helps transform what on the surface could have been a vanity project into something stunningly vital, complex, and powerful. You can feel the history in it. It may not be the most groundbreaking track on the album but it is unquestionably my favorite. The one that makes my heart swell. "How I've missed you, my love" 

1. Mitski - Your Best American Girl

29. Zara Larsson - Rooftop

Zara Larsson was born in 1997, the same year her fellow Swede Robyn first impacted US charts with the unapologetically saccharine “Show Me Love.” While they may be a whole generation apart, Zara’s “Rooftop” clearly finds a musical anchor in Robyn’s recent output, contrasting a pulsating electronic beat with dreamy synths and delicate vocals. The best part of this song is clearly the way Larsson’s accent wraps itself around the word “barbeque,” but a deeper inspection finds truth in the enduring tenants of teenage wistfulness . The kids in the music video may be cooler than we were with their purple hair and selfies, but there’s still the all-too-familiar sense of youthful melodrama present (“we could be soulmates”) that transcend generations. Larsson dates her song like a diary entry, letting the rush of her romantic encounter and early sense of independence crescendo into what feels like imminent chaos before dropping to a barely-whispered chorus. Larsson is  suddenly back to her bedroom, eyes locked on her phone and waiting for a text.

28. Nicki Minaj – Lookin Ass

The Mixtape Nicki Vs Album Nicki debate has overstayed its welcome at this point (especially considering the barely-squeaked out “The Pinkprint” succeeds on its own surprisingly emotionally bare merits), but you’d be hard pressed to deny that Minaj’s unofficial output from the first half of 2014 wasn’t a bit more exhilarating than the likes of  “Pills and Potions.” From “Boss Ass Bitch” to her bonkers verse on a remix to “No Flex Zone,” Nicki reminded us all what an undeniable force she can be when she’s truly making an effort. Nothing was better than her misandrist anthem “Lookin Ass” which finds the rapper completely eviscerating her unworthy male suitors and critics over a terrifyingly sparse beat and distant wails. Nearly every line ends with the N-word, allowing Nicki to sneak in an unconventional rhyme scheme into a song that puts its emphasis on directness above all else.  As she’s been herself for the entire duration of her career, it’s initially easy to dismiss as dumb, revealing its complexities slowly before knocking down her Jenga tower of carefully-stacked bars with a combustible breakdown in the second verse (“Pussy you dry!/ Pussy-ass nigga you lie!/ Pussy-ass nigga you high!/ Bitch, I’m ME!”) that asserts Nicki above all others.  At the end of the video she pulls out machine guns as if it’s still necessary.

27. Katy B – Crying For No Reason

Ever since “Dancing On My Own,” club-ready songs about emotionally devastating moments have been a regular fixture in modern pop music. While most of these tracks play off the ironic contrast of sad sentiments and upbeat music, Katy B’s “Crying For No Reason” makes the sounds of the discotheque bend to her emotional state instead, eventually turning the club into its own tomb. Ominous drum beats in the distance sound like a beckoning call of a death march, while mournful synths build to a would-be release that Katy never quite finds the internal clarity to fully unleash. At its heart, "Crying For No Reason" is a simple song and Katy has to work overtime to sell it on vocals alone. The disco stomper you're waiting for never comes. It's all raw nerve and blood on the dance floor.

26. ILoveMakonnen - Tuesday (Feat. Drake)

"Tuesday" is a stupid song. I don't think that's really a dig; the stupidness is its entire essence. Part of the song's success might be Drake's appearance in the video, a performance far funnier than anything he did on his solid SNL hosting gig earlier this year. Drake indulges every corny aspect he has, veering between a put-upon swagger and spaced-out clowning as if to mirror  the scatterbrained nature of his verse, one that finds him getting randomly melancholic about Canada in between boasts about Xanax. Then there's Atlanta weirdo ILoveMakonnen who isn't really a rapper, singer, or much of anything at all. He sounds like Jiggypuff and swallows his words, but "Tuesday" is undeniably his creation, woozy and seasick and strange as hell. There's a chance we'll look back on this as a strange novelty, but for now "Tuesday" is an anthem for the wall creeper in all of us.

25. Kelis – Runnin’

Kelis ditched outer space for the homespun immediacy of the kitchen for “Food,” and while it’s at first jarring to hear the woman who once screamed “I hate you so much right now!” on her debut single slide so easily into domesticity, Kelis sounds at home amongst the warm Philly horns and percussion, treating each like ingredients of her favorite comfort food stand-bys. Dave Sitek unfortunately doesn’t quite have the full flavor profile to boost the album to classic status (it often sounds muddled when it’s not flat), but the same can’t be said for the mid-album stunner, “Runnin’,” which puts Kelis’ newfound vocal husk on full display. Over mournful horns and subtle string enhancements, Kelis sounds utterly devastating as she sings about running from love and personal fulfillment. It’s a lost torch song from an era neither past nor present, but ultimately rooted in a downhome ethos that seeps into every second like sun tea.

24. Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me (Feat. Kendrick Lamar)

It’s only fitting that a song called “Never Catch Me” about facing mortality  sounds like it’s trying to run in 5 different directions at 150 miles per hour. Only Kendrick Lamar can keep up with Flying Lotus’ dizzying avant-jazz insanity and he sounds like an absolute spazz staying on top of Steven Ellison’s crashing cymbals, ebbing and flowing key changes, Thundercat’s sputtering bass solo and that persistent little piano motif. The whole effect is like a mind becoming unhinged and overflowing with emotion - Kendrick’s panic, his existentialism and his ultimate triumph to be better while he still can. This is an aural kaleidoscope; cluttered, colorful and ever-shifting with wonder and joy.

23. Royksopp & Robyn - Monument

Royksopp and Robyn’s inevitable collaboration effort begins with “Monument,” a song that stays true to its title with a 10-minute running time and mammoth prog-rock-in-the-arctic sound to match. It’s purposefully imposing and self-important, the type of experiment that could easily derail to its illusions if it didn’t stand so steadfastly confident in its own concept. Robyn forgoes her usual vocal exhilaration to commit fully to character, sounding stoic and robotic as she sings lines like “Make a cast of my body.” She’s limestone, eternal and resilient surrounded by the changing seasons and landscapes of Royksopp’s booming synths and arpeggios. The song gives way to an extended saxophone riff, not as a tool of ironic nostalgia, but as a genuinely impacting oddity.  It’s a beacon of light in a song that faces the passage of time like the edge of a razor. We hear Robyn sing “So that when the moment comes, I can say I did it all with love” and the edifice cracks. She’s no longer earthbound. 

22. Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting For You)

The Letterman performance made have made a meme of this song due to frontman Sam Herring’s strange,  entrancing, and seemingly possessed dancing, but that performance never would have found the legs it did if there hadn’t been something genuine behind it. There’s nothing particularly “Sound of 2014” about “Seasons,” just a resolute little synth wash, a strident bass pattern and a swelling of strings near the middle 8. But there’s also Herring’s voice, all those little flecks and strains that turn “Seasons” from a throwback pop confection into something much more immediate. Herring puts his soul on the line, filling each second with aching sincerity and a willingness to sound exposed and tragically unhip in the process. There were likely more than a few who got ironic enjoyment out of Herring’s dance skills, but there was nothing jokey about them. “Seasons” is a plea to feel, and the sound of a man surrendering himself to life’s unpredictability.

21. Jessie Ware – Tough Love

Jessie Ware’s stunning 2012 debut was defined by sense of stately romance that was almost too measured to be real. She was the musical equivalent of Alicia Florrick on The Good Wife – deeply feeling but with cracks that never show. “Tough Love” in contrast feels significant. Singing in a delicate falsetto, Ware has flipped the script, sounding vulnerable and like she’s sweating for the first time in her career. There’s a beautiful pragmatism in “Tough Love’s” fidelity, with Ware pushing aside all her previous sense of control and accepting that love cannot be planned or understood. When Ware sings “So you wanna be a man about it, do you have to?” at the end of verse 2 it recalibrates everything we thought we knew about her. Ware’s no longer catalog cool; there’s an openness she now wears like a badge. That’s the tough love.

20. Hannah Diamond – Every Night  

The aesthetic of the PC Music collective is firmly established at this point, but it’s still hard to determine intent. There’s obviously some pointed critiques at mass media and music consumption at play (their more buzzworthy song, “Hey QT,” is “sung” not by a singer, but by a soft drink) but is there still a chance that all their purposefully cloying artifice and cavity-causing sweetness is just one big joke at the expense of pop music? There’s a knowing sense of hyper-reality to Hannah Diamond and it’s not coincidental that her frightfully catchy singles “Pink and Blue” and “Every Night” both put an emphasis on the visual reminders of love more than the realities of it. On “Pink and Blue,” Diamond loves the way her and her cute boyfriend look to the world in their gendered colors. On “Every Night,” things get a little more meta, with Diamond not just loving the way her boyfriend looks this time, but liking the fact that he knows she likes how he looks. It’s as if that famous “They don’t know we know they know we know” Phoebe line from “Friends” turned into a weird critique of the laws of physical attraction. Musically, the track is lighter than cotton candy, all hiccupping vocals and Jock Jams synth loops that eventually render the listener queasy. Diamond (herself a visual designer) looks like the leftover scrap remnants of Debbie Gibson and about a dozen faded British 90s pop stars. She is unapologetically a commodity. PC Music have cut out the middle man in this CandyLand dystopia – this is music AS marketing not a tool of it.

19. The Antlers – Parade

Though nothing will likely rival the visceral impact of “Hospice,” The Antlers still have no trouble delivering a fatal KO of a gut punch. “Parade’s” misery is a deceptive one, masking itself in dreamy guitar licks and warm horns that evoke the song’s titular subject seen through a nostalgic 8mm film filter. A closer inspection reveals, however, that this is a song about what happens once a parade is over. 2012’s “Burst Apart” chronicled a dying relationship, but “Parade” is about what happens when a diseased one is refused passage. There’s tons of beautiful elegiac imagery – abandoned bridges, flooded streets, empty cars – that slowly reveal a relationship doomed to turmoil but bullish in an insistence of renewing itself with the meaningless ritual of an annual spectacle. The song ends with the lyric “This year will be the year we win/We smoke the paper from the banner from our past parades/and start again before the memory of the mess we’ve made.” Suddenly those horns sound like they’re coming from a straggling member of a marching band who refuses to go home.

18. Natalie Prass – Why Don’t You Believe In Me

Can I call a singer a master of phrasing after one song?  Nashville singer-songwriter Natalie Prass saunters through the country-soul of “Why Don’t You Believe In Me” like a long con flirtation. Prass’ voice is clear as a bell and in complete command of the song’s slowly unfolding melody in a way that recalls Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick. The warm grind of the rosy 60s-inspired arrangement creeps through the song like ivy, even allowing space for Van Morrison quicksilver flutes and a buoyant brass section. But watch how Prass treats her song like a game of cat and mouse, toying with anticipated moments of release with unexpected tempo shifts, feedback and vocal switch ups. The song might find the singer in a moment of romantic paralysis but there’s never a moment where Prass doesn’t have it wrapped around her little finger.

17. St. Vincent – Prince Johnny

Annie Clark is a rock star in the way I don’t think anyone else is right now. She can shred a guitar like nobody’s business, her brief discography is already beyond stellar, and her natural charisma is through the roof. Most importantly, she has fine-tuned pop sensibilities but sticks the landing on every conceptual gambit she takes. Take for instance “Prince Johnny,” a confident character study about the self-destructive idle rich that Clark slowly twists into a condemnation of her own kind of pointlessness. Filled with acerbic wit (“Remember the time we went and snorted that piece of the Berlin Wall that you’d extorted”) and a myriad of literary illusions, Clark takes a Salinger-ready concept track and imbues it with self-reflective grace, reaching a pinnacle of sorts when Clark releases with aching sincerity, “I wanna mean more than I mean to you/I wanna mean more than I meant to him.” The tempo is persistent and eerie, the sorrowful moans of the choruses give extra weight to the words around them and the jazzy breakdowns and subtle guitar chugs are so artfully weaved in they barely call attention to themselves. Annie sits on a throne on her album cover – she’s the rock god now.

16. Spoon – Inside Out

For a song with such a relaxed swagger, “Inside Out” sure makes some dramatic statements. Strewn about the funk stomp, the guitar distortions and the harps from the coolest Sedona Valley spa you’ve ever been to is the sound of a man seriously enamored. “Inside Out” might be the sexiest Britt Daniel’s voice has ever sounded, and it’s easy to see why when he’s making declarations of love so resolutely that he’s willing to abandon not just his religion for it, but the entire concepts of time and gravity too.  Time has gone inside out, he’s become a satellite and he’s got no more time for holy rollers. There’s just the slow drift of absorption, a sentiment so unwavering it refuses to adhere to the laws of physics or to the whims of God. A brief history of time in just 5 minutes.

15. Marina and the Diamonds - Froot

After a muddled trip into the land of concept albums and pop star alter egos, Marina is back to her idiosyncratic self on “Froot,” and boy does it sound good to hear her sing something not completely drenched in irony. On a surface level, “Froot” is a light-hearted disco romp, but it’s also a song proud to be deeply engrained in its own utter strangeness. From the intentionally misspelled title to verses that make Marina sound like a vampire countess after a Lexapro cocktail, “Froot” is at once a theatrical, funny and tenderly unguarded song about delayed fulfillment and wasted potential. Marina has tons of fun and room to play with the central fruit metaphor and she’s able to add real depth to the subject as her lyrical content ranges from cheeky (“baby I am plump and ripe”) to morose (“leave it to long I’ll go rot/like an apple you forgot”) to macabre (“birds and worms will come for me/the cycle of life is complete”).  Pop music is generally lacking impulse control. “Froot” is the rare introvert’s anthem; a siren song for those of us who have a hard time letting loose and are sick and tired of it. “Oh my branches are heavy.” You said it.

14. Lana Del Rey – Brooklyn Baby

Lana’s made some references to Coney Island in the past, but she’s mostly had her feet firmly planted in the sandy beaches of California and her aesthetics pointed somewhere in the vicinity of “Manson Family.” “Brooklyn Baby” is still seeped in nostalgia for the American past, but the entire essence of Lana’s cool has been forced to change. Much like “National Anthem,” “Brooklyn Baby” can easily be read as a tongue-in-cheek response to her (many) vocal detractors. This time, Lana sounds inauthentic on purpose, insisting on her own coolness with references to Lou Reed, beat poetry and vintage jazz records. They think she doesn’t understand the “freedomland of the 70s,” but she’ll show you. She can fit any mold she wants to fit, and when that overextends to “tawking” (that slip into a put-upon Long Island accent is brilliant) about her entire generation, it doesn’t even matter. She’s even cooler than her boyfriend and he’s in a band.

“Ultraviolence” extended the Lana Del Rey palate past its sharply defined tent poles in unexpected ways. She’s in on the joke and the funniest part about it is you’re still treating it like one.

13. Future – Benz Friendz (Whatchutola) (Feat. Andre 3000)

I’m not the first person to say that “Benz Friendz” is the closest thing we’ve had to a true blue Outkast song in years, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Andre 3000 is like a devilish little imp at this point, popping up sporadically and methodically to dazzle us with effortless guest performances before marching off to that genius in hiding corner he’s been sharing with Lauryn Hill. And what a marvel he is here, his relaxed precision forcing Future to stretch beyond his occasional crutches to deliver a couple of confident verses that slowly morph the track from an anti-gold digger anthem into a  pointed dissection of the personal value of wealth. With its Gothic choir loop, “Benz Friendz” serves as something of a middle ground on Future’s excellent album “Honest, which ping ponged between gruff ratchet jams and meditative declarations of love. There’s an ecstatic level of catharsis in Future’s “These cars don’t mean shit/these hoes don’t mean shit!” chant but there’s also an overt attempt at turning the whole greedy ho narrative inward, most notably when Dre questions why he would ever turn on his 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser when “that bitch ain’t never broke down on me.”  A party song, yes, but one with one eye focused on what remains when that party ends.

12. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues

If you can find me a musical moment in 2014 more bracing than Laura Jane Grace bleating out “You’ve got no cunt in your strut/you’ve got no hips to shake,” I beg you to let me hear it. On her first album since coming out as a transgender woman, Grace sounds utterly punk rock on the record’s title track and for good reason too. Her hurt is palpable and her frustration is even more clear as she sings damning lines like “They just see a faggot/ They hold their breaths not to catch the sick,” lyrics that point to the dissonance of identifying as a woman but being seen by a man by society at large. Grace just wants to blend in with every other girl in the world, but since this is punk rock and all, she wants to be seen as an individual too. In the song’s most moving moment, Grace sings “You want them to notice/ the ragged ends of your summer dress,” perfectly summing up the mixture of terror and pride that comes with any coming out. The guitars keep rolling, the drums keep pounding and it all ends up sounding like freedom in a heartbeat.  She’s howling, she’s yelping; she is woman hear her roar.

11. Taylor Swift - Style

As effective as I find “1989” as a pop album, I can’t exactly call it a progression or statement of maturity for T. Swift like so many critics seem wont to do. Take “Style” for instance, the clear standout from an album crammed full of hooks and melodies so efficient they seem almost lethal. The romantic tenants referenced here are about as infantile as anything from her previous albums, as Taylor lets pastiche culture do the work for her while she references James Dean, red lips and fast cars and a whole bunch of other doomed teen romance clichés mostly gleamed from movie posters. But what if there’s more? “Style” literally debuted as an advertisement for Target and that’s really all the song is –pieces from a fall lookbook in musical form. Suddenly “Style” seems less brain dead, almost like it’s a biting satire of Taylor’s “romance for the emotionally dumb” trademarks. Love is reduced to symbols but it’s giddy and it’s wild and it’s triumphant because it looks good. The beat pulsates, the synths cover everything in a Christmas ham glaze and the guitar scribbles its way in like notes in the margins. This isn’t about real enduring love, it’s about iconography. Taylor Swift gets the pop game after all.

(Taylor doesn't allow this song to exist on the internet)

10. Mariah Carey – You Don’t Know What To Do (Feat. Wale)

Few moments this year brought me more joy than when Mariah announced via Twitter that she was naming her newest album "Me. I Am Mariah..The Elusive Chanteuse." While I'm sure the reaction from most was snarky eye rolls, I was elated. Here we are - blessed with this beautiful goofball diva and we don't know what to do with her anymore. Mariah's in an undeniable transitional phase. She'll likely never add a 19th to her collection of #1 singles and "The Elusive Chanteuse" is the obvious sound of her recognizing this. There's no zeitgeist chasing, no David Guetta collaboration, Iggy guest raps or songs about her booty. Instead we get her cooing to #dembabies on "Supernatural," waxing poetic amongst friends about classic hip-hop on "Dedicated," and sounding completely unguarded on the stunning "Camouflage." Mariah is comfortable, finally ready to rest on those damn laurels but refusing to diminish her talents in the process. This is what Mariah's good at - no surprise it's one of the finest albums in her nearly 25-year career.

Which brings us to the complete triumph of "You Don't Know What To Do," the best Mariah uptempo in years and a crown jewel in the recent disco revival trend. It's a powerful statement in its own right - Mariah finding professional solace in a genre that's traditionally found a place for women older than 35 with giant voices. She oozes Donna Summer on that flawless slow burn intro (I asked Mimi over Twitter to give us a version without Wale yammering over it to no avail) before exploding into a heavenly bed of disco strings and harps built for the roller rinks. It's endlessly catchy with a sing-along earworm hook and a crafty structure that allows Mariah to climb over her own vocals like a staircase. I picture her smiling and laughing in the studio and I feel proud.

9. Perfume Genius - Queen

When 2012's "Put Your Back N 2 It" came out I deemed it "an album for the sad gay boy in all of us." The almost uncomfortably intimate (and intensely moving) concert I saw with an anxious and physically inward Michael Hadreas appeared to support my claim. "Queen" is a major step forward for Perfume Genius, both in terms of pop craftmanship as well as his own confidence as a performer, a song that uses the singer's personal discomfort with his body as a weapon against a culture of gay panic.  "Queen" isn't a gay liberation anthem and there's certainly no "it gets better" message here. Instead we get a refrain that's almost militarized in intent: "No family is safe when I sashay." Hadreas' queerness is front and center because one's queerness is almost always front and center. It's a song brimming with rage and Hadreas has no sense of resignation as he lets the glam rock swirl surround him until he erupts like Carrie at the prom.

8. Clean Bandit - Rather Be (Feat. Jess Glynne)

"Rather Be" surfaces on American Top 40 radio from time to time but it was absolutely mammoth when I visited my friend in London this summer. I'll forever be transported to my friend's flat every time I hear it, its blips and soaring strings triggering a flood of memories of us dancing together and catching up with each others lives after months apart. It's pure elation in musical form, holstering a melody far more infectious than any others this year with a fantastic vocal performance that dips and weaves into the song's seemingly endless parade of hooks and refrains. Just listen to the way Glynne  dots the pronunciation of the word "Dubai" or the way she stabs the first word in each line of the chorus. In a year filled with disco throwbacks (I refuse to credit this to Pharrell), "Rather Be" is a nice reminder that dance music used to be expensive as hell to produce. While Clean Bandit's track is almost criminally simple in raw components, its string section suggests a possible nadir of EDM, a triumphant return to real instrumentation in dance music and a sterling testament to disco's unheralded dedication to gilding the musical arrangement lily. Quite simply: what a tune.

7. Azealia Banks - Soda

Against all odds, Azealia Banks finally blessed us with the long-awaited "Broke With Expensive Taste" and holy shit was it good. It's possibly my favorite album of this year, and while it is undeniably all over the place, it's one of the few albums this year where the sheer scope of ambition demands it be heard. A drawn-out affair, "212," "Luxury" and "Yung Rupunxel" could have had a place on my 2011, 2012 and 2013 lists respectively, but it's a little album track called "Soda" that garners my unexpected attention in 2014. "Ice Princess" and "Chasing Time" are bigger songs, yes, but "Soda" really gets to the crux of Azealia. The house foundation Azealia built her career on is there for starters, but its lyrical content also speaks to Banks' fascinating sense of fragility and scattered clarity. She's self-medicating here (her soda addiction is not the same as mine), fluttering between brio and devastation and clinging to as many distractions (and influences) as possible. "Icy Coca Cola/Sprite I love the most-a!/I ride rollercoasters!/I try all the cultures" is as beautifully gonzo a lyric as they come, but it also sums up Azealia's expansive worldview, her youthful brashness and her troubling sense of escalating madness. It's a raw nerve of a song with a danceable groove, one that sounds like it's creating its very own genre as it tailspins into oblivion and a second verse that swirls from earbud to earbud with its own unmedicated brilliance.

6. Angel Olsen - Hi-Five

Angel Olsen begins the electro-twang of "Hi-Five" with a direct callback to a country king: "I'm so lonesome I could cry." Sounding like a cross between Roy Orbison and the ethos of Laura Palmer, Olsen puts a dose of sex appeal in her misery, her voice sounding distant and crackled as if it's appearing from ether out of some lost radio signal. She's a sad girl but damn it if she's not trying. It's easy to picture Olsen strutting into a dive bar (one with a broken mechanical bull, no doubt) with a sassy cowgirl stomp only to slump over a bar with two fingers of whiskey. She's fighting her own internal monologue ("All I need is someone out there to believe/SOMETIMES!/believe/NOT ALWAYS!") but ultimately finds kinship with her equal. The song's climaxes with a joke, Olsen asking a stranger if they're lonely too and exhaling "Hi-Five! So am I!" when the answer is yes. There's an obvious self-awareness in the line, but it's one caked in truth and tears. The warble in her voice says it all - you find it where you can.

5. Tinashe - Bet (Feat. Dev Hynes)

There was no more pleasant surprise in 2014 than Tinashe. Based off her (admittedly killer) first single, "2 On," it would be easy to dismiss Tinashe as another thin-voiced wannabe R&B diva with the fortune of finding an undeniable nugget of gold in a DJ Mustard production. But Tinashe is much much more - a cross between Janet Jackson and The Weeknd back when he was worth anything - who is somehow able to find a warmth and earthy seduction in the cavernous glitch of today's modern "alternative R&B" landscape. More shocking is that "Aquarius" is a major label debut that sounds unafraid of aiming for the fences, an album that's quick to eschew easy club hits for experiments with bedroom production with meandering grooves and weird little soulful pockets. "Bet" is a prime example, a lurching lesson in seduction that turns an oath of fidelity into something mystical and unknown. Blood Diamonds' production is certifiably insane as it sends Tinashe gliding through zero-gravity black holes of skittering beats, tinkling pianos, warped vocals and an achingly sincere central performance. It all ends with an extended guitar solo from Dev Hynes, the extra push the song needs to send it into a new stratosphere. "Bet" is a towering statement of artistic conviction at the precise moment where Tinashe could easily have taken the easy route. Right before the beat drops into the chorus, Tinashe coos, "I'll be here tomorrow. Bet on it." Duly noted.

4. The War on Drugs - Red Eyes

How simple of me to describe "Red Eyes" as a song begging for a montage. I think there may have been one earlier this year on AMC's "Halt and Catch Fire" but that's not a show worthy of the beautiful grandeur of the song's Bruuuuuuce in the 80s brand of Americana. "Red Eyes" is a song that jolts you alive - there's so much going on sonically that you get swept up before you can isolate all the components giving it all that life force. Adam Granduciel's mood poem lyrics add to the propulsion, sliding erratically between optimistic and resigned in a way that demands the listener to keep moving forward insistently and bullishly for the promise of sunnier skies. There's a slow buildup to that breakdown of sorts, Granduciel's simple "Woo!" emerging from reverb and delivered with the conviction of a Pentecostal preacher. This is a song destined for youthful nostalgia, for letting loose and surrendering to life's unfolding promises and praying for the constant hope of tomorrow.

3. fka Twigs - Two Weeks

"Two Weeks" is fucking terrifying. Even before that "painting in motion" music video that cast the singer as a primordial version of Aaliyah's "Queen of the Damned" character, "Two Weeks" was making references to the singer ripping apart a man's body and pulling out incisors during her display of sexual prowess. "Two Weeks" is sexy in a way a song with a beat this alluring would have to be, but it's also purposefully crass and direct in its own Tantric way, undulating with dark crevices of desire and unwavering demands of female satisfaction. With her orgasmic whispers that somehow radiate poise despite the subject matter, "Two Weeks" is essentially the definition of "carnal" even as its disorienting fog suggests a reality removed from ours. It's not clear if Twigs would actually talk this way to someone or if it's all part of some blissed out fantasy, but she is definitely inhabiting whatever weird space she's carved out. She's like some type of unearthed cave creature, cut from an earthbound art-pop space like Kate Bush but also as if she's arrived via a doomed spaceship piloted by Missy Elliott. "Two Weeks" is the direct sum of the influence of LOTS of forward thinking women of pop but it's its own uncomfortable seductive thing. Somehow that bridge section ends up sounding like Annie Lennox and then you know that fka Twigs has made you lose your damn mind.

2. Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked

Lykke Li had her heart broken. “I Never Learn” is a devastating listening experience, a breakup album that snuck under my skin and rattled my inner most core in ways I couldn’t even begin to anticipate. She’s refreshingly unguarded for the entire duration of the album, eager to sacrifice precision in her vocal performances to convey a sense of tangible pain and raw emotion. Taken as a whole, the album often becomes an uncomfortable listening experience, with Lykke often straining outside of her range to hit notes that eventually fade to whispers. Starting with a delicate and simple piano intro, “No Rest For the Wicked” eventually becomes mammoth, building to a massive chorus that packs an entire epiphany into a few simple words. Lykke’s the monster of her own story and she sounds absolutely shattered as “No Rest” reaches its breaking point: “I let my true love die/ I had his heart but I broke it every time.” There’s no explicit redemption here, just quiet resignation with the faded hope that time will pass and do its job. An instant classic.

1.   D’Angelo – Betray My Heart

Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad (AMC)

Hugh Dancy, Hannibal (NBC)

Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)

Damian Lewis, Homeland (SHO)

Matthew Rhys, The Americans (FX)

Aden Young, Rectify (Sundance)

Winner: Jon Hamm

Jon Hamm still not having won an Emmy is maybe the second biggest travesty in modern Emmy history behind The Wire never landing a drama nomination. This is one of the most iconic performances of our time and he continues to get better, especially in a season that asked Hamm to really push Don to his limits. Again, I have to point to that finale.

As much as I remain frustrated that I don't see Breaking Bad with the same rose-colored glasses as everyone else (it's still very good), I'd be remiss to not nominate Bryan Cranston, who has truly managed to make a transformation from the once sympathetic Walter White to the show's villain in a way so gradual that it was hard to even notice. Damian Lewis won last year and deserves to be back again, although I don't think he has anything near as electrifying as the season 1 finale to get another statue.

That leaves three newcomers (I can't believe I left off my husband Timothy Olyphant either, but this season of Justified was weirdly not about its main character at all). I didn't understand the casting of Matthew Rhys on The Americans at first based on my familiarity with him on Brothers and Sisters but he proved me wrong with a performance that saw him effortlessly slipping between devoted dad, icy ass-kicker, and most memorably, the nerdiest lothario you've ever seen. It says a lot about Hugh Dancy (and the brilliant dynamics of Hannibal) that he can pull so much focus off a character as memorable as the title one, but he's just amazing here, bringing to mind shades of his wife's role on Homeland by bringing us to the brink of discomfort with a mentally unstable government agent lost too deep in his work. Equally as haunting was Aden Young in Sundance's evocative Southern Gothic, Rectify. As a just-released prisoner coming off an 18-year sentence, Young brings a sense an uneasy mixture of childlike wonderment and deeply wounded hurt to everything he does, creating a character that's a continuously evolving cipher that we can still feel with all our hearts.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series 

Claire Danes, Homeland (SHO)

Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife (CBS)

Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black (BBCA)

Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men (AMC)

Emmy Rossum, Shameless (SHO)

Kerry Washington, Scandal (ABC)

Winner: Emmy Rossum

Shameless is far from a perfect show. Tonally, it can be a mess, often struggling to balance its outrageous shock value with the sort grounded realistic family drama it excels at. When it works, it really works and that's almost always because of Emmy Rossum, who carries the entire show on her shoulders. Fiona fighting for custody of her brothers and sisters was one of my favorite moments of the year. 

A close second is Tatiana Maslany, who arrived out of nowhere to make Orphan Black the surprise show of the season. Tasked with playing multiple characters (Soccer mom Alison ftw) Maslany has A LOT of work to do on this show and I'm amazed at how distinctive of an impression she left on each clone. 

Elsewhere, Claire Danes was as good as ever (that crazed smile in the premiere!) and will probably win this for a few more years. Elisabeth Moss is still maybe the best actress on TV, but Peggy was a little shortchanged on material this season to be in the lead category. Still, her dinner with Pete was a real highlight. I also really enjoyed the independent no-nonsense streak Margulies brought to Alicia on The Good Wife in season 4. As for Kerry Washington; Scandal had a huge breakout season, and while it's often goofy with a capital G, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't along for every overdramatic lip-quivering Olivia Pope monologue.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Michael Cudlitz, Southland (TNT)

Walton Goggins, Justified (FX)

Vincent Kartheiser, Mad Men (AMC)

Mads Mikkelsen, Hannibal (NBC)

John Noble, Fringe (FOX)

Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad (AMC)

Winner: Michael Cudlitz

I'm terribly sad Southland didn't get a renewal for next year, but wow, what a year for Cudlitz. As part of the most jarring episode of slowly unfurling terror since David Fisher's ride through Cracktown on Six Feet Under, Cudlitz brought wounded intensity and seething frustration to fantastic moment after fantastic moment during the show's final season.

Also saying goodbye to a series is Fringe's John Noble. Always underrated as both a comedic and dramatic actor on this show, Noble was really to thank for the incredibly moving way the series went out. Aaron Paul continues to be my favorite part of Breaking Bad, as does Walton Goggins on Justified, always flirting with the other side of Shakespere as Harlen County's criminal lynchpin. I realized I've never given Kartheiser fair credit (probably because Pete is such a creep) but he had a lot of great (and often very strange) material this year. Finally, let's give it up for Hannibal himself. Mads Mikkelsen removed all the hamminess of Anthony Hopkins' iconic role and instead made the show's central villain into something minimal and hypnotic. I didn't even have room for Mandy Patinkin, who I picked as my favorite last year. 

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones (HBO)

Regina King, Southland (TNT)

Annet Mahendru, The Americans (FX)

Monica Potter, Parenthood (NBC)

Kiernan Shipka, Mad Men (AMC)

Abigal Spencer, Rectify (Sundance)

Winner: Monica Potter    

Clean house! I have six different faces in this category which just goes to show how a supporting performance really depends on the material you get in a given year. Let's start with my favorite, Monica Potter. Was her cancer story line awards bait? Yeah, but it was amazing award show bait, leaving me misty-eyed after almost every scene.

After a mostly-stagnant season 2, Clarke got the most "hell yeah" moment of the year courtesy of her fiery Daenerys and slew of fire-breathing dragons. Make no mistake, the girl can really act. I wanted to pay my respects to Regina King on the dearly departed Southland and also make a nod to Kiernan Shipka, who continues to give a performance well beyond her years and one that assuredly set up an upcoming season that feels like it will be largely anchored by Don and Sally. 

For newcomers, I have Annet Mahendru who played a double agent caught between a rock and hard place on The Americans and Abigal Spencer as the spitfire sister struggling to reconnect with her just-released-from-prison brother on Rectify. Two new faces I'll now make sure to follow everywhere.

Outstanding Comedy Series

Bunheads (ABC Family)

Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23 (ABC)

Enlightened (HBO)

Happy Endings (ABC)

New Girl (FOX)

Veep (HBO)

Winner: Enlightened

Can we start with the depressing fact that the first 4 nominations up there are all now canceled (or in the case of Bunheads, likely canceled)? I weep for the loss of these quality shows, the most of which is Enlightened, now a lock for one of my top 5 series of all time. I don't even know how to properly describe what this show meant to me this year, but the word I always go to is "spiritual," Maybe it doesn't belong in this category but it was simply my favorite thing on TV, unlike anything else in character care, POV, and aesthetics. Truly a special show that redefined what a TV show can be. 

I don't even think Bunheads submitted itself, but if you've ever read my Twitter feed, I adore this show like no other. Breezy, clever as hell and sweetly moving, no show on TV makes me happier than Bunheads. I think if this show were on while I was getting waterboarded I would still have a stupid grin on my face. Renew it for the love of God. 

Happy Endings and Don't Trust The B were just too clever for network TV, each pulsing with unstoppable rhythm, profound weirdness and truly impressive balances of warmth and full-on cruelty. I expect Bitch 23 to find the cult audience in the future it deserves. Happy Endings probably made me laugh out loud more than anything else here. 

New Girl had a massive breakthrough this year, surprising me week after week with just how hilarious the ensemble cast is and how quickly it became a show I would never dream of missing. They're even managing to make a will-they-won't-they story feel fresh. Finally, I'm giving the last spot to Veep because I love acidic humor and this show brings me to the point of tears almost every week, illuminating that I'm probably just a giant asshole. 

(Hate leaving off 30 Rock's triumphant final year, the always great but a little long in the tooth Parks and Rec, and the always inventive Louie. The last two will probably be back here next year considering at least half of these are gone. As for Community - we all saw what happened this year.)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (NBC)

Louis C.K., Louie (FX)

Nat Faxon, Ben and Kate (FOX)

Jake Johnson, New Girl (FOX)

Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

Winner: Jake Johnson

Always my least favorite category, I'm happy there's a performance here I can really get behind in Jake Johnson's Nick Miller. From "gave me cookie, got you cookie" to his therapy sessions with a silent Asian man in the park, Johnson brought daffy charm to his pitch-pefect portrayal of sexually-frustrated arrested development.

Some reliable standbys in this category (Alec Baldwin, Adam Scott, Louis C.K.) each of whom I don't really have anything new to say about!

As for Josh Radnor - his HIMYM character catches a lot of flak but I thought he nailed his emotional beats this year and slowly started to become my favorite character on the show. Finally I threw a bone to Nat Faxon from the short-lived Ben and Kate, who was always amusing on a show that started to deflate just in time for it to die. 

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Laura Dern, Enlightened (HBO)

Tina Fey, 30 Rock (NBC)

Sutton Foster, Bunheads (ABC Family)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep (HBO)

Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Krysten Ritter, Don't Trust The B---- in Apt 23 (ABC)

Winner: Laura Dern

No offense to the still very good Girls, but there are six women more deserving than the most recent Globe winner, Lena Dunham. Let's start with Laura Dern who is everything to me. Amy Jelicoe will go down as one of the most complex and fascinating TV characters ever and I can't image anyone other than Dern pulling that off. Poehler is still giving one of the best comedic performances in sitcom history, and Tina Fey left her show on a high note, allowing Liz to come full circle with a satisfying ending. Louis-Dreyfus and Ritter both played to my love of mean girls, one routinely at her wit's end and the other just a breezy sociopath. Finally, there's Sutton Foster who I just want to hug and sing songs with for the rest of time. 

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Ray Ford, Don't Trust The B---- in Apt. 23 (ABC)

Max Greenfield, New Girl (FOX)

Nick Offerman, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Chris Pratt, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Timothy Simons, Veep (HBO)

Damon Wayans Jr., Happy Endings (ABC)

Winner: Damon Wayans Jr. 

Brad from Happy Endings is my dream man, plain and simple. Wayans was fantastic in this role bringing a fun sense of masculine/feminine dynamic to TV's biggest goofball. A dream. 

That means I dethrone Nick Offerman, who is still one of the best characters to ever be on TV but was a little short changed on what ended up being an oddly repetitive season. Pratt was also great as usual, mixing in some great dramatic work with Andy's slow search for purpose. Another carry over from last year is Max Greenfield from New Girl who keeps making a douchebag one of TV's most likable characters.

That leaves two names that probably won't ring many bells. One is Veep's presidential liason Jonah (Timothy Simons), who is just fantastic at being an annoying gnat of a human being. The other is Bitch 23's Ray Ford, who played James Van Der Beek's assistant, Luther. Luther is now my favorite sitcom gay of all time, each dose of impeccable shade delivered with icy panache. I actually watched his reaction to being tricked into thinking Patti Labelle died 10 times in a row.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Eliza Coupe, Happy Endings (ABC)

Elisha Cuthbert, Happy Endings (ABC)

Jenna Fischer, The Office (NBC)

Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock (NBC)

Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation (NBC)

Julie White, Go On (NBC)

Winner: Elisha Cuthbert

I gave the Marcus Emmy (The Memmy?) to the still amazing Eliza Coupe last year, so I figured it was only fair to share the wealth with the dumber of the Kerkovich sisters this year. Cuthbert really impressed me the longer Happy Endings was on. Originally one of the more forgettable characters, Alex quickly turned into one of its greatest strengths, full of perfectly delivered non-sequiter asides and a hilarious awareness of own shortcomings. The stealth MVP of a show with six VERY showy personalities.

I don't really believe in "lifetime" Emmys unless really necessary, but I really think Jenna Fischer earned one for what was a predictably messy final season of The Office. Saddled with some crappy story lines (let's forget Brian the cameraman), Fishcher emerged on top and as lovable as ever, really making that finale sing. I also don't view Krakowski's nom as a farewell one either - Jenna was as strong as ever, a strong exit to one of my personal favorite characters in sitcom history. Also reliable is Plaza as the deadpan April, a character that continues to get more interesting the older she gets.