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In these early days of 2021, we could all use a bit of a mood boost. James Acaster looks back to 2016 to find 13 songs that make him feel uplifted. “An uplifting song is one that makes me feel positive in any way. It can be the music, the lyrics, or a memory,” says James. “Sometimes it’s a personal thing. Most of these songs are from the first 2016 playlist I made, when I was making this big musical discovery and hadn’t even talked about it yet. They’re all songs I have a connection to. They remind me of when I reconnected with music.”

I think vocal harmonies with more than two people, they just stir something in you. They elevate you to another plane."

These are James Acaster’s most uplifting songs of 2016.

Andy Hull & Robert McDowell – Montage
“This is from the film Swiss Army Man. The whole soundtrack to that film is brilliant, but this track particularly makes me laugh because it’s designed to make you feel uplifted and positive. It’s like if scientists in a lab came up with a formula for making an uplifting song. All the lyrics are just things happening on screen in the film and they’re ridiculous. None of the lyrical content matters. Nobody’s listening to that. They’re just listening to these uplifting, powerful chords.”

case/lang/veirs - Atomic Number
“I like all the individual artists on this song (Natalie Case, K.D. Lang and Laura Veirs). I couldn’t believe they’d made an album together. This song is exactly what I wanted from them. They’re all singing in these beautiful, perfect harmonies and the melody is just like liquid. It’s so beautiful. I think vocal harmonies with more than two people, they just stir something in you. They elevate you to another plane. I don’t know how people harmonise. It’s an otherworldly skill to me. I think this is a genuinely perfect song. There’s nothing I’d criticise”

Old Man Saxon – Breakfast
“This kind of hip hop always makes me feel positive. The beat is very head-bob-y and the lyrics are really articulate and his vocal is really clear. I love the vocals in the background that kind of rise up and glide through the song. I think that has a very uplifting vibe to it. I first started listening to hip hop in the 90s, when I was in primary school, and I was drawn to it because it had this happy, positive vibe. Stuff like De La Soul and K7. This feels like an updated version of that.”

Matthew E. White (featuring Natalie Prass) - Cool Out
“I found this when I was looking for songs by Natalie Prass, who I really like, because I didn’t know if she’d released in 2016. All she’d released was this song by a guy I’d never heard of. It’s a song that makes me very happy. I like how it’s very understated, when it could have easily been made into a big banger. If you listen to the melody, lyrics and the structure of it, it could have been huge. But instead they’re using squeaky electronic drums and things that sound like kids’ toy instruments. It’s got the swagger of a mainstream pop hit, but it’s a tiny version of it.”

Noah Britton - I Love You So Much
“I saw Noah Britton in a documentary on Netflix called Asperger’s Are Us. It’s about a sketch troupe who have Asperger’s. They’re doing their final performance before they all move on to the next stage in their lives. It’s an amazing documentary. Noah is the oldest one in the troupe. He plays a couple of songs in the documentary, so after I watched it I went looking for other songs by him and came across this. It’s very moving – I definitely cried at the end of the documentary – but it’s as much about the story behind it as the song. The uplifting feeling I got from the documentary comes back to me when I listen to this.”

Little Simz - Picture Perfect
“This is a really good party song. It makes you want to dance. It almost needs no explanation for why it’s on this list. If you’d never heard this before and you were in a club, I bet you’d dance to it. You wouldn’t be off to the bar to wait for a song you know. It’s a very infectious song. It’s got horns in the background, which I find automatically uplifting. This should have been a much bigger hit than it was.”

Orkesta Mendoza - Shadows of the Mind
“It’s the only song on this Orkesta Mendoza album that’s in English. It reminds me a little bit of Beck. More horns on this one, so I’m in. But the lyrics are actually quite dark and psychedelic. I like when songs do that, when a song sounds really happy and then you listen to the lyrics and think, ‘Hmm, not so sure this person’s doing alright’. There’s a second vocal on it, a guy shouting things like, “Boogaloo!” and just being really crazy. It’s like someone at a fairground just sitting at the top of a helter-skelter and belting out to people. It’s got quite a mad vibe to it.”

I like when songs do that, when a song sounds really happy and then you listen to the lyrics and think, 鈥楬mm, not so sure this person鈥檚 doing alright"

D.R.A.M. ft. Lil Yachty – Broccoli
“This is just a song that doesn’t take itself seriously and is just here to have fun. Lil Yachty is somebody nobody takes particularly seriously, at all. He’s just seen as a bit of a laugh. There’s something about the way autotune is used on this that makes you smile. I enjoy it when autotune is use very deliberately, to move the human voice to do things it can’t. When the autotune ends I kind of miss it and wish it would come back. You can hear that they’re both having a really good time recording this. It’s got a bit of a smile to it. Well, any song about smoking weed has got to have a laidback vibe. You don’t want to make a song that’s going to freak them out.”

Devin Frank - Moonlight of the Night
“The harmonica is an instrument that no matter how it’s used it will make me feel quite uplifted. Even when people are trying to make it sound sad, I cannot feel sad. It’s impossible for me to hear a harmonica song and not feel quite happy. There’s something about it that makes me go, ‘Aahh, this is a laugh’. So every time the harmonica kicks in on this it makes me feel good. It’s also got a country influence, so it makes me feel quite outdoorsy. Reminds me of not being locked up.”

Kamaiyah - How Does it Feel
“This is an example of how hip hop can be uplifting, no matter what you’re singing about. This has a late 90s, early 00s flavour to me. The whole album has the feeling of being with friends, passing some drinks around and singing along. The song is talking about how she’s been broke all her life and wonders what it’s like for people who are rich. But she’s not saying, ‘I hate my life’. It’s still a celebration of everything she’s got with her mates.”

I love the effortless acrobatics of her voice on this song."

EL VY - Are These My Jets
“This is a comedic song. EL VY is the side project of Matt Berninger of The National and another guy whose name I forget because he’s not as well-known and I listened to some of his music and didn’t really like it (his name is Brent Knopf). This was from a compilation album originally called 30 Days, 30 Songs, a collection of anti-Trump songs to get people through all the hate of the Trump campaign in 2016. The whole song is sung from Trump’s perspective. It’s a day in his life and it’s all him as an absolute moron, stumbling through his day. Over the past four years of Trump doing awful things, listening to this song about him being an idiot has made me feel better at times.”

Uni Ika Ai - Soft in Ice
“This has a Portishead vibe. When you embrace the Portishead vibe you automatically sound quite cinematic. When Portishead started their whole thing was to form a band that sounds like a James Bond soundtrack. Listening to songs that sound cinematic always make you feel a bit like you’re walking down the street in slow motion and I enjoy that. I love the effortless acrobatics of her voice on this song. It’s not dramatic, excessive vocal acrobatics. It’s like if someone designed a rollercoaster but they wanted to make it for rollercoaster nerds instead of the public who wants something that makes them scream. They’re demonstrating how beautifully smoothly it can run, with the occasional loop-the-loop.”

Yohuna - The Moon Hangs in the Sky like Nothing Hangs in the Sky
“There was a time in my life, when I was getting into emo, where every song I listened to had to have a very long song title, otherwise I did not respect it. A lot of the songs I’ve chosen are quite well produced, but really low-fi production like this, where everything’s a bit fuzzed out, can work to a song’s advantage and make it uplifting. That title, which is also the main lyric, sounds like it’s marvelling at how nature is beautiful. That’s something I always find uplifting. Life can be very complicated, but the natural world is very simple in comparison.”