The music world just won’t stop raining accolades on our girl Courtney Barnett. Fresh off a rapturously received Glastonbury set, the Aussie singer-songwriter’s single ‘Pedestrian at Best’ has now been named as the Best Song of 2015 So Far by Rolling Stone.
The single from Barnett’s acclaimed full-length debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, was not only warmly received here at home, making it to a very respectable Number 4 on the ARIA chart, but even managed to crack the Top 20 in the US.
The song’s popularity even recently saw it added to the list of playable tracks on the upcoming instalment of Guitar Hero, alongside fellow Aussie favourites like Wolfmother’s ‘Sundial’, Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl?’, and Angus & Julia Stone’s ‘A Heartbreak’.
“Courtney Barnett makes it sound so insultingly easy — why aren’t there three or four rock & roll singer-songwriter records this loose and frisky and funny and stout-hearted every year?” Rolling Stone wrote of the track.
“Maybe it’s not that easy. The only song on her album that flops for me is the one about real estate — using cafe latte as a metaphor has been a dead zone since ‘Drops of Jupiter’. But it’s not tough to pick the high point.”
“‘Pedestrian at Best’ shows off her Breeders/Pavement/Phair guitar hooks (although her vocals are more Mark E. Smith than even Stephen Malkmus would have tried to get away with), her cyanide diatribes, her internal monologue of saturated analog.”
The track came in ahead of critically acclaimed mega-hits by the likes of Miguel, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, Hop Along, Jamie xx, Girlpool, and more. Readers can check out Rolling Stone‘s Top 10 below or the full list via the Rolling Stone website.
Rolling Stone’s Top 10 Tracks of 2015 So Far
1. Courtney Barnett, “Pedestrian at Best”
2. Miguel feat. Wale, “Coffee (Fucking)”
3. Kendrick Lamar, “How Much a Dollar Cost”
4. Taylor Swift, “Style”
5. Hop Along, “Sister Cities”
6. Jamie xx, “Gosh”
7. Girlpool, “Chinatown”
8. Fetty Wap, “Trap Queen”
9. Waxahatchee, “La Loose”
10. Nicki Minaj & Beyonce, “Feeling Myself”
