This is Todd in the Shadows’ Top 10 Best Songs of 2015 list. I’ve followed Todd since I was fifteen in the fall of 2010. I’ve since bounced off of almost every other video critic from that era, it seems. They’ve all either risen into something unrecognizable, or I’ve outgrown them, or whatever. Production values rise, they run out of things to talk about, whatever. Todd – along with the guys from Laser Time and Lindsay Ellis– remains at the same level of quality and relevance to me eight years later. (I should disclose I support all of them on Patreon)
Youtube criticism rose out of men feigning anger at things, and a disappointing amount of the most popular men out there are still doing so. When I say I’ve outgrown someone as a critic, this tendency towards immediate anger is one of the two main reasons I do so (the other is a refusal to accept more nuanced forms of criticism). Todd was the first person I remember putting out year-end “best” lists, which sort of shocked a kid who found out about him on a site named for and run by a man whose recurring gag was screaming and firing a gun at movies he didn’t like. Todd was maybe the first YouTube critic who drew me to his positive criticism as much as his negative criticism.
Todd’s Best of 2015 list came out at the end of January, 2016. I disagree with almost this entire list save for the top two songs. I took more from one particular honorable mention – Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away With Me” – to which Todd lent only one line of praise:
“I don’t usually put songs that wouldn’t qualify in the honorable mentions, but, uh, this is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.”

And, no, I’m not sure how I ended up getting a signed copy from that store
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