Sometimes you just know.
The first time I heard Mitski’s “Your Best American Girl” I knew it was a keeper — the kind of song I wanted to bury in a capsule to keep safe and revisit twenty years later (if not tomorrow). It’s my favorite song of 2016 for its sonic avalanche and devastating timestamp of America’s return to nationalism.
A brief primer on the 26-year-old Mitski Miyawaki, of New York: she was born into a Japanese-American family that lived in 13 different countries before moving to the U.S. when she was 15. Many of her songs address a lingering sense of otherness and the idealized environments and relationships she constructed in her alienation. When her family moved from country to country, she always claimed her father’s American identity and assumed her tribe resided in the states.
She told The Guardian: “Finally I came to the US and realised: ‘Oh, I don’t belong here, either.’”
“Your Best American Girl” is the coming to terms of Mitski’s heterogeneity as an inevitable deal-breaker with her partner. She sees her struggle with conformity and cultural acceptance as a hindrance, even though this other person is “the one” and “all I ever wanted.” She has to let go in order to hold onto the pride she has for her uncompromised identity.
Mitski slams the door on this relationship in the chorus, which rushes in on a chilling, distorted wave:
Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I think I do
And you’re an all-American boy
I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl
The song’s clever construction maximizes the impact of the chorus’ finishing move. And along the way, so much is packed into an exhilarating three and a half minute journey. First things first, you gotta turn up the volume from the jump to hear the little sigh at the twelve-second mark. From there, you feel the tension of Torres’s “Sprinter” mixed with the bombastic highs of Sia’s “Chandelier.” The bridge’s synth giving way to the feedback of the chorus will never fail to deliver goosebumps.
To my mind, “Your Best American Girl” is the art form’s greatest representation of 2016. It serves as a flag-planter for women in the lo-fi, indie rock scene; a traditionally white male-dominated music genre that saw Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett and Mitski assume the throne. But it also specifically speaks to the fear and uncertainty of an America with promised walls and unshrouded white supremacists. In the end, this is a song about shaking yourself awake from the American dream in favor of lucid independence.
I loved a lot of other songs in 2016…enough to fret about snubs on a 100-track playlist. One obvious omission is Beyonce’s “Hold Up” which would slot in around 15 were Lemonade available on Spotify. Alas, I wanted a list of my favorite songs I could share, so here’s my top 25 (list) and top 100 (Spotify playlist), sans Bey.
- Mitski – Your Best American Girl
- Kanye West – Ultralight Beam
- Solange – Don’t Touch My Hair
- Frank Ocean – Ivy
- Anderson Paak – Am I Wrong
- Chance The Rapper – No Problem
- Angel Olsen – Intern
- Car Seat Headrest – Fill In The Blank
- Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate
- Electric Guest – Dear to Me
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Rings of Saturn
- Margo Price – Hands of Time
- A Tribe Called Quest – We The People…
- Bon Iver – 33 “GOD”
- Blood Orange – Best to You
- Beach Slang – Punks in a Disco Bar
- David Bowie – Lazarus
- Ariana Grande – Into You
- ANOHNI – 4 Degrees
- Danny Brown – Ain’t it Funny
- Drive-By Truckers – Ramon Casiano
- Jamie T – Tescoland
- Weyes Blood – Seven Words
- Postilijonen – Wait
- Japanese Breakfast – In Heaven
GatheringWool 