Top 100 Songs 2010-19: #20

#20
Dirty Beaches – “Horses”
Badlands (2011)

It wasn’t a shock to see Alex Zhang Hungtai, who recorded under the name Dirty Beaches from 2007-14, eventually show up as one of the featured musical performers in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return. Read any review of his enigmatic 2010 release Badlands, and you’re likely to encounter a Lynch comparison (and Hungtai even later confirmed the influence). “Horses” is an unnerving exercise in ghoulish rockabilly with a motorik twist. Atop a metrical chug of looping guitar and drums (reminiscent of Suicide’s “Rocket USA”), Hungtai’s quavering, tic-laden vocal channels early Elvis Presley (or Chris Isaak, for a more apt comparison). Like those singers, Hungtai carries himself with rugged, self-assured cool, yet the song constantly teeters on the verge of some unknowable horror.