The Popdust Weekend Playlist: The Snubs From Our Top 100 Lists

Every year, there are more than 100 songs that are worthy of being included in a Top 100 Songs of the Year pop list, but once you get through all the songs you have to include from all of your major stars—your Taylor Swifts, your Rihannas, your Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl Citys—100 just isn’t as big a number as it seems like it should be. Therefore, there are always a handful of artists and songs that get unjustly snubbed in a Top 100 list.

Here’s a playlist of ten awesome songs we just couldn’t find the room for this year. Sorry guys—it wasn’t you, it was us.

DANNY BROWN, “GROWN UP”

A short, sweet look back from one of hip-hop’s greatest characters of recent years on his truant younger days, reflecting on how things turned out way better for him than anyone could have imagined (concluding on the song’s hook, “Who ever thought I’d be the greatest growing up?” One of the year’s most adorable music videos helped this one seem even more charming.

BRAD PAISLEY, “SOUTHERN COMFORT ZONE”

NASCAR broadcast and Jeff Foxworthy samples kick off Brad Paisley’s epic ode to his land below the Mason-Dixon line, which both pays tribute to the region’s many virtues and (duh) comforts, but also acknowledges that Paisley “can’t see this world unless I go / Outside my southern comfort zone.” (Though he qualifies that by saying “I know the road I leave on / It will always bring me back.” At over five minutes in length, and encompassing gospel choirs and guitar solos and a steadily crescendoing emotional swell, “Zone” is one of the most ambitious country songs of recent years, and also one of the most satisfying.

BAT FOR LASHES, “LAURA”

The lead single and theatrical centerpiece of Natasha Khan’s (a.k.a. Bat for Lashes) acclaimed The Haunted Man, “Laura” is an absolute showstopper, with dolorous piano and strings providing the appropriately dramatic backdrop as Khan wails “You’re the train that crashed my heart / You’re the glitter in the dark / Oooh Laura / You’re more than a superstar!” Is it about Laura Palmer, murdered vixen from ’90s TV show Twin Peaks, as theorized by some? Doesn’t really matter all that much.

FUTURE FEAT. DIDDY & LUDACRIS, “SAME DAMN TIME” (REMIX)

How ’bout Future? How ’bout Diddy? AT THE SAME DAMN TIME! Future already had one of the hip-hop hooks of the decade with his “Same Damn Time” single, but the Diddy-and-Ludacris-featuring remix—always a good idea, by the way, even for the latest Train or Karmin single—just takes it to the next level. “See sometimes in life, these motherfuckers take your kindness for weakness,” Diddy rhapsodizes on the intro. “So sometimes in life, you just gotta blow their motherfuckin’ faces off.” Too true, Sean.

PORTER ROBINSON, “LANGUAGE”

One of EDM’s most talented wunderkinds—they just make ‘em younger and younger these days, don’t they?—20-year-old Porter Robinson crafted one of house’s great opuses this year with “Language,” with gloriously contrasting layers of synth and piano hooks making the vocal that eventually comes in halfway thorugh the song’s six-minute runtime totally superfluous. Look out for this guy in 2013.

For more jams that just missed our Top 100, including Kirko Bangz and the best new song from a TV show this year, click NEXT.

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