#3 - Lil Yachty - "Strike" / "prETTy"
“Poland” broke the internet, but it was just pretty good—a snippet-turned-megahit that came about because Yachty was fucking around in the studio and went berserk with the vibrato, rapping like a little assistant was madly tapping his neck like a xylophone. Then he returned with “prETTy,” evolving the gag into a fully-fledged technique—splayed across layers of deeper vocals and a woman’s sighs, his neon quivers express an overwhelming surge of desire. The bliss radiates so brightly it’s almost unbearable, like gazing directly into a solar eclipse of pleasure.
With less longing and more languor, Yachty fine-tuned the slapstick style on “Strike (Holster),” saving his gale of frail flutters for the final verse and just several words. The lyrics span a few topics—he offers a slew of definitions for the word “strike” and talks about getting geeked and tweaked on drugs—but his voice starts billowing at the line “perky got her stuck like a holster.” In the context of this glacial beat, the line morphs into a tragic image, and a perfect distillation of how his inventive yet inane vibrato method sounds: it’s like your words are lagging and you’re sleepwalking through reality, living in a percocet-induced slow-down. Intentionally or unconsciously, Yachty’s tremulous studio trickery captures our moment of stunted growth—a feeling of perpetual unease as twenty-somethings waver between jobs, adrift in a doomscrolling nightmare. The ‘60s had Phil Spector’s wall of sound, how about Yachty’s wailing warbles?
The list:
#10 - bar italia - "Missus Morality" / "maddington" (tie)
#9 - Ken Carson - “Lose It” / “Me N My Kup” (tie)
#7 - saya - “blood school” / sprinks - “Paradox” (tie)
#6 - lostrushi - “HYDROXYCUT” / “USE YOUR WINGS”
#4 - xaviersobased - "u dk how 2 hoop" / Nettspend ft. Osamason - "Wake up" (tie)