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Year In ReView: 16 of our most favorite Boston songs of 2016

Choosing our favorite 16 Boston songs of the year is like choosing your favorite child -- if you were the Duggars or some other family with a few hundred kids. While mainstream pop continued to die a slow painful death, it was another bang-up year of music coming out of the isolated Boston music scene. What we have in our region are legions of musicians making music on their terms and their own way, and the result is a fantastically eclectic batch of new tunes that proved this year was one of the best around town. The selections below, listen alphabetically, aren't any sort of ultimate Best Of, though they do reflect what we've enjoyed the most, what we've hyped on these digital pages, and what we had spun on VanyaRadio. If you read this website on the regular, you should be quite familiar; if not, then dive in and hear something new and exciting.

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Contact, “Never Stop”

We’ve long been fans of Massachusetts electronic-pop group Contact, but the addition of vocalist Nicole Marie (Orchids, Stereo Telescope) took their sonic reach to new heights. This was most evident on post-CHVRCHES banger “Never Stop”, a glistening, vibrant number that was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2016 Boston Music Awards. Contact have a knack for giving glacial sounds a certain weightlessness, and “Never Stop” is another complex and layered musical take from Matt Rhoades and company; beyond the production shine, it’s the boy-girl tradeoff vocals is part of what allows this track to stand out in a very crowded alt-pop field.

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