#3 - Bladee & Ecco2k - "The Flag is Raised" / Thaiboy Digital - "I'm Fresh" (tie)
2022 may have been the best year ever for drainers and sad boys. There was Bladee, Ecco2k, and Whitearmor’s iridescent Crest, and later in the year Bladee’s madcap solo album; Lean’s eclectic, often thrilling Stardust, and Thaiboy Digital finally released a new record. That’s not even counting all the work by the squads’ producers—Gud’s one-off beats and angelic tape as Rooster, Whitearmor’s crystalline collection of wedding songs.
It was fascinating seeing how the crowd aesthetics differed between Drain Gang and Yung Lean’s Knockdown Center shows this year. The former was quirkmaxxed: crammed stage to bar with college kids and hyperpop nerds awash in neon garments and creative makeup. Lean’s common disciple, in contrast, was closer to your typical streetwear-obsessed male rap fan, and the age seemed to skew older. I remember the demographics were once roughly the same, years ago, but now there’s a divide, which you can trace through to the way these musicians’ sounds have diverged.
Lean is still making experimental rap (and the occasional lick of post-punk) while Bladee & Ecco2k have gone nearly pure pop. Not pop like Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande, it’s their own mutant creation that would never take the charts. One of the best they’ve done in this vein is the fruity-sweet and vocally androgynous “The Flag is Raised.” “Here comes a feeling, you should never let it go,” Bladee advises at the start, like you’ve just been dropped in an otherworld where feelings have the form of visible shapes, able to be grasped or reached for, touchable like critters or tree branches. “Caress that feeling, the feeling in you,” he coos gently.
Perhaps the most surprisingly infectious release from any Drain Gang extended universe member in 2022 was Thaiboy Digital’s “I’m Fresh.” It’s a blizzard of hooks with a dizzying instrumental by Whitearmor. Rhyming “pesos” with Jeff Bezos, repeating the words “I’m fresh” five times for the chorus in increasingly out-of-breath tones so it sounds like he’s about to asphyxiate on his own freshness, spinning up a delirious dance to match the vertiginous rhythm—it’s all brilliant, and the track isn’t even 90 seconds long.
The list:
#25 - Destroy Lonely - “NOSTYLIST”
#24 - elusin - “Elksling”
#23 - skaiwater - “#miles”
#22 - Wednesday - “Bull Believer”
#21 - islurwhenitalk - “pink neon lights”
#20 - Two Shell - “home” & “Memory” (tie)
#19 - Luci4 - “ON GANG”
#18 - Harto Falión - “{*______*}” (prod. evilgiane, whitearmor, Gud)
#17 - lecie - “ex post facto”
#16 - Yung Lean ft. FKA twigs - “Bliss”
#15 - DJ:ReCode - “adhd” ft. tobre & “keeper” ft. goji! & BIO (tie)
#14 - Uffie - “dominoes”
#13 - Yeat - “Still countin” & “Out thë way” (tie)
#12 - Ame - "Degree" (prod. Royal, y2tnb, Brycenknwn, Ame)
#11 - Sudan Archives - “ChevyS10”
#10 - Asian Doll ft. Bandmanrill - "Get Jumped" & Bandmanrill - "BANDTHOVEN" (tie)
#9 - Nilüfer Yanya - "stabilise" / "chase me" (tie)
#8 - GREED - “summer mixx 2k22”
#7 - Hemlocke Springs - “Girlfriend”
#6 - Izaya Tiji - “I drink blood” (prod. Souljaspirits)