The Top Albums of 2019

The Top 50 Albums of 2019

Ian Brower

Hey reader. This is the intro to my 50 favorite albums of 2019 list. In the past, this is where I would give a short overview of the global politics and cultural movements that contextualized the music released during the year. I also typically described some of the trends the music industry followed during the year, like longer album lengths to manipulate streaming profits. I won't be doing that this year, because it doesn't matter. I'm over it. I don't care. I'm not CNN. These are 50 phenomenal albums (and an honorable mention) and I hope you enjoy reading about them. That's all. I hope that this list inspires you to check a few new artists out. Maybe you'll find a new favorite band, send some money to a few small artists (if you send any money to Ariana Grande I'll know and I'll find you), maybe you'll just have fun looking at pretty album art. Either way, I hope you enjoy my list. Artists who released multiple albums this year will have both projects in the same spot if I feel like they were of equal quality. If I do not think they are of equal quality, I will not be including the lesser work. 

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Thanks, Sorry! - Jeff Rosenstock

Really Records/Polyvinyl

No list of mine is complete without a Jeff Rosenstock mention. Hell, Jeff Rosenstock makes it to my grocery lists. Rosenstock has been a primary figure in punk music for almost 25 years now, and I do not believe he has ever released a bad piece of music in that time. Thanks, Sorry! is a live album comprised mainly of songs from his three most recent albums, 2015's We Cool?, 2016's Worry. and 2018's Post-. The album feels like a celebration of his accomplishments, a victory lap of sorts. That's not to say he's resting on his laurels at all - the show captured here is absolutely electrifying. Rosenstock is a magnetic performer, full of an impossible amount of energy. He treats every moment of his songs as "the moment" (you know what I'm getting at, don't be difficult), and every note of this hour and a half recording is played at 100% effort. His band is ridiculously cohesive (likely a product of Rosenstock's famous nonstop work ethic) and the recording is excellent. Thanks, Sorry! is about as much fun as one can have listening to a live album, and I highly suggest you give it a listen the next time you need to remind yourself what joy feels like. Thanks, Sorry! gets my honorable mention spot because it is a live album, and it's not fair to compare other works of art to a handpicked selection of the greatest songs from the greatest figure in modern punk rock.

LISTEN TO: "Usa" "Hey Allison!" "We Begged 2 Explode" 

50. 

 we just need some time together - Between Friends 

Z Entertainment

A lot of the albums on this list are timeless works of art - works that will stand the test of time, entertain and influence future generations, and change the shape of art as they know it. we just need some time together will probably do no such thing. Look, the EP made my top 50. I love this little thing. That being said, if you told me this album sucks, I'd shrug my shoulders and say "whaddya want me to do about it?" It's kinda true. The instrumentals somehow already feel outdated in December (the time of writing this) and the album was just released in April. Not to mention, the lyrics are just abysmal. I'm sorry, but if you write the lyrics "What if computers cared / and we just stared / through their hearts all day?" without even a hint of irony, I'm gonna tease you. That's really bad stuff. They refer to themselves as a "laptop dream pop band" and every member of the group is pretty enough to land a modeling contract. This whole EP is basically the sonic equivalent of an Endless Summer dorm room poster. Despite all this, I love this record. I don't know what it is, but it makes me smile every time I hear it. There's something about the overall package of the record (awful lyrics, weird dubsteppy electronics, and all) that makes it extremely pleasing. It doesn't hurt that the melodies are phenomenal. This EP could be 17 minutes of three beautiful Los Angeles people calling me an idiot and I'd still be humming the choruses like, "yeah, it hurts a lot, but I won't stop singing it!" If you like aesthetic, dreamy, and catchy electro-soul then give this EP a shot. I promise it more than makes up for its shortcomings.

LISTEN TO: "iloveyou" "better friends" "blushing!"

49.

IGOR - Tyler, The Creator

Columbia Records

Pretty cool that Tyler, The Creator is making big, grandiose breakup albums now. Just two years after Tyler calmed down enough for critics to admit that they liked his music, Tyler has released the sprawling IGOR, and it may be his best album yet. IGOR feels like the fully realized product of an artist making whatever he wants. Even Flower Boy had moments that felt too programmed, too calculated for success. IGOR pretends to be nothing. Tyler throws a Playboi Carti verse into the middle of the album's biggest ballad, switches beats without warning, drowns his mixes in bass and it works on every level. IGOR is hilarious at times solely because of how much is happening at once. It's like Tyler, The Creator turned every idea he had during the course of making this album into a fully-fledged idea. Tyler has stuffed the album to the seams with ideas, and he is at such an untouchable place in his career that he might as well. His production is immaculate, his rapping is better than ever, and his singing/melodies have actually turned into one of his strengths. All this, plus his enigmatic personality have never come together better than they do on IGOR. 

LISTEN TO: "EARFQUAKE" "A BOY IS A GUN" "GONE GONE / THANK YOU"

48.

 MAGDALENE - FKA Twigs
Young Turks Recording Ltd.

If this album is what breaking up with Robert Pattinson is like, then I'm pretty sure FKA Twigs needs to be pressing charges right now. MAGDALENE is a raw and occasionally frightening look into Twigs' grapple with heartbreak and identity. Laying the foundation for it all is the production, which is simply mind-melting. Nicolas Jaar, Skrillex, Benny Blanco, Cashmere Cat, Arca, Kenny Beats, Oneohtrix Point Never, and more are featured on the album's absolutely stacked production credits. The rest of the album could be FKA Twigs reading the British phone book and that production team would manage to pull a BNM from Pitchfork. The instrumentals swing between ethereal keys and floating vocals down to pummeling bass and skittering hi-hats almost once a song, and it's a trick that doesn't get old. They run the gamut from more traditional hip-hop to complete madness and Twig's operatic vocals are the sole unifying factor. Twig's lyrics and vocals are in the best form of her career. Lyrically, she has a fantastic ability to write cutting one-liners that break up the archaism of some of her work; they add a sense of easy immediacy and catharsis that keeps her work easily enjoyable without making it fall squarely under the "pop" label. Vocally, however, is where Twigs really proves herself. Her voice shifts between a breathy croon, a piercing falsetto, an angry growl, and everything in between, and they are all linked perfectly to her lyrics. Twigs is a captivating performer and compelling songwriter with a fearless ability to lay herself out on the operating table for the listener. Magdalene is a brutally honest and expertly produced look at one of modern music's most multi-talented individuals, and a brilliant reminder that FKA Twigs deserves every bit of the praise she has gotten in her short career. 

LISTEN TO: "sad day" "mirrored heart" "cellophane"

47.

unknowhatimsayin? - Danny Brown

Warp

Danny Brown's last album, Atrocity Exhibition, was an uncompromisingly dark and haunting look into drug addiction, depression, and failure. On top of that, it was an utter masterpiece. uknowhatimsaying?'s lead single mentions fighting an obese woman's husband and having sex with a stripper for pocket change (plus he doubles down on how real that story is). If that isn't an ideal career change, I don't know what is. Danny Brown has always been able to perfectly position himself at the intersection of party animal, crackhead degenerate, and philosopher and this album is no exception. As usual, uknowhatimsayin? comes with a fairly substantial sonic departure from his previous albums. Gone are the EDM sized beats of Old and the blown-out psychedelia of Atrocity Exhibition; they've been replaced with a version of boom-bap that feels at once old-school and distinctly Danny. Q-tip executive produces the album, and his touch is distinctly present yet unquantifiable. Production aside, Brown's rapping is as flawless as ever. He has some utterly brilliant lines ("The Henny got me wetter than whale piss / I'mma die for this shit like Elvis" is Einstein brain stuff) and his overall style remains as distinct as ever. The whole album feels like a throwback, both to the 90's rap of Brown's upbringing as well as to his criminally overlooked early career. All in all, uknowhatimsayin? is another excellent album from Danny Brown. It may not be his most artistically ambitious, but its brevity, elite production, and top-notch rapping make it one of the most enjoyable records of this year. Maybe Danny Brown has mellowed with age, but I doubt it.

LISTEN TO: "3 Tears (feat. Run The Jewels)" "Best Life" "Combat"

46.

Future Hndrxx Presents: The Wizard - Future

Freebandz - Epic

Sorry for the blurry album art, but that's probably how Future sees things anyway at this point. Ever since his breakout mixtape run in 2014 Future has been an unstoppable creative force, releasing albums, mixtapes, and collaborations at a point that has, honestly, been detrimental to the quality of his music. At times it feels like Future is releasing music just to have something to do, rather than because he thinks it is important. Even this year, Future released an excellent album and an EP that is a slightly better way to spend 20 minutes than just taking a long shower. His schtick has not changed since he perfected his blend of menace, sensitivity, and hedonism on Monster, and for good reason: it has become the blueprint of modern hip-hop. Nobody would say Future fell off, as his formula is solid enough that he is incapable of releasing truly bad music (boring at worst). Yet, even still Future will release a project that serves as a reminder of what made him such a juggernaut in the first place. Future Hndrxx Presents: The Wizard does just that. Don't get me wrong, this album has some serious flaws. For one, this thing has no business over an hour long. Despite its preposterous 20-song length, it is actually fairly consistent. The forgettable songs are just that, while the great songs are some all-time Future cuts. "F&N" could have been from Monster, while "Jumpin on a Jet" is one of the catchiest songs Future has released since DS2. The album's highlights far outweigh the moments where it drags, and if you know the right 10 tracks to take from this album, it is one of the best things Future has ever done. I understand that 10 great tracks out of 20 is an overall F, but I don't really care. You can make your own list and not include Future to prove your point. 

LISTEN TO: "Jumpin on a Jet" "F&N" "Servin Killa Kam"

45.

the first glass beach album - Glass Beach

Run For Cover Records

Every year, an album comes out and makes the list that feels impossible. I listen to it and go "there's no way somebody thought to make an album sound like that." the first glass beach album is exactly that. Asking me to describe what the hell is going on in this album is like asking me to teach my dog to bark in Chinese. It doesn't work. It's theatrical, extraordinarily complex, weirdly jazz and oldie inspired, it's funky, lo-fi, heavy, energetic, crushing, uplifting, and every other musical adjective I can pretend to use properly all at once. Genre distinctions are laughably inaccurate here, but the emo/pop punk community has mostly claimed the album as its own (likely due to the nasal, emotive vocals and the mathy instrumentation). However, going into this album with those qualifiers in mind is a really easy way to not understand it in the slightest. Quite a bit of the album's appeal is in the way it straddles delirious complexity and childish simplicity. The whole record sounds like a look inside a child prodigy's head. The album is racing out of control, ideas spiral into one another like falling dominoes, and it's all extremely upbeat and weirdly reminiscent of Christmas (?). Let me know if you guys get that impression. Anyway, this is not an album for everybody. The people who appreciate it, however, will absolutely obsess over it. There are few records released each year that are this inventive and endlessly enjoyable. Glass Beach has amassed a formidable fanbase in a short amount of time, and I have no doubt that their next project will be the only thing r/emo kids talk about for a few months after its release. 

LISTEN TO: "bedroom community" "cold weather" "orchids"

44.

Together Lonely - Tim Atlas

Tim Atlas

Again, sorry the blurry album art. I'm pretty sure Future and Tim Atlas are working together to keep their album art out of the hands of dudes who make one post a year on their blog. Tim Atlas is a singer/songwriter from Oakland, which is cool, but more importantly, he made it pretty far on that awful singing show, The Voice. Because I never change my viewpoints due to having the whole world figured out at 22 years old, I am going to reiterate my review of his 2018 project All Talk!. If you hear "finalist on a singing reality show" and your brain doesn't immediately go "this guy is gonna suck" then you have worms. In theory, this should be an overly manufactured, oversung, and generic piece of garbage. Luckily, it's not. Tim Atlas has delivered a full-length project on par with his first EP, which was one of my favorite pop projects of last year. Atlas has a truly wonderful way with melody, and it comes through with dazzling clarity on Together Lonely. Rather than using his voice to impress with its range, Atlas uses his skill to wrap his voice around every word, giving it the perfect inflection every time. Instrumentally, the album runs a bit generic at times, which is the record's only fault. A few of the songs border on the run-of-the-mill bedroom pop drivel that has dominated streaming sites in the last two years, but for the most part the album separates itself from that crowd through layered, textured production and Atlas' incredible melodies. If you find yourself drawn to that style of soulful dream pop but are tired of the boring, generic artists that dominate the genre, Tim Atlas might be your next obsession.

LISTEN TO: "Tangerine" "Crime of Passion" "Hold Up"

43.

Play Me Something Nice - Joesef

Bold Cut

People nowadays are quick to call anything released from a major label from somebody their age a label plant, and they're usually wrong. That being said, I have a bridge to sell to anybody who doesn't think there's at least a decent chance Joesef actually is. The kid got a full album, song by song, write up from Apple Music and has dominated music recommendation services ever since this EP was released. I'm not saying it's a for sure thing, but the kid has no social media following and an Apple Music description like he's a former member of the Rolling Stones. Now that the conspiracy theory is out of the way, it's album time. Play Me Something Nice, for all of my industry plant jokes, is so good that I wouldn't be surprised if Joesef's hype was built entirely on word of mouth. He's the perfect soul star for 2019 - everything is perfectly dialed in. Immediately attention-grabbing is his voice. It's nasal and high, but also extremely soothing. It's melodic and expressive, with both something distinctly old fashioned and something modern about it at the same time. The songwriting is top-notch as well. The instrumentals are perfectly suited for the song and have a similar old/new feel to them as Joesef's voice. The heavy reverb and boxy drums plus the vocals make every song here sound like a recording of 2019 that was made in 1958. The hooks are solid and give another way for Joesef's voice to sneak into your head. Regardless of any industry connections that Joesef may/may not/probably doesn't have, his raw talent and songwriting skills have me assured that he will make the most of it.

LISTEN TO: "Limbo" "Play Me Something Nice" "Kerosene"

42.

Super Enthusiast - Macseal 

6131 Records

Macseal, put simply, rules. After releasing an EP last year that I would definitely move up a few spots on my list retrospectively, they have finally released their debut full-length album and oh man does it deliver. Macseal has finally found the perfect balance between their mathy and poppy tendencies and locked it in. Super Enthusiast plays like 11 straight singles, each as lovely as the other. The album is warm and immediate, hooky with just enough bite to remind you that these guys can rock when they want to. See: the new version of "Sure Thing, Shelly" (now titled "Nothing's a Sure Thing, Shelly") feels like there's a rocket attached to it. The drums feel like they're in the same room as my ears, and the mix is overall much more live feeling. Many of the songs here have vividness that is new to Macseal's sound, and it's a welcome addition. There are a few things I wish were a little smoother; the drums are far too high in the mix and the songs don't feel properly dynamic due to more weird mix stuff, but aside from that, this is a collection of 11 perfect emo-pop songs. In the future, it would be interesting to see Macseal try some heavier stuff or maybe experiment with other genres, but for now, they are hitting a perfect stride with their indie-pop. 

LISTEN TO: "Always Hazy" "Nothing's a Sure Thing, Shelly" "Problem Solved"

41.

 

Still Summer in the Projects / Netflix and Deal - 03 Greedo

Alamo/Interscope

Production has always been the major inconsistency in 03 Greedo's career. His own production ranges from fantastic to barely passable, so it stands to reason that his most cohesive projects would have the production handled by outside sources. Still Summer in the Projects features production courtesy of DJ Mustard, while Netflix and Deal is handled by Kenny Beats. Both projects have unique feels to them, all united by Greedo's unmissable voice. Still Summer in the Projects feels more laid back, classic even. Greedo fits perfectly into Mustard's woozy g-funk, which allows him to oscillate between his usual vicious rapping and leftfield singing. It exists as the best pure distillation of Greedo's style to date. Meanwhile, Netflix and Deal sees Greedo rapping over much more straightforward production. The beats here feel almost poppy, and the huge feature list solves another one of Greedo's big problems; oversaturation. Greedo's albums often feel exhausting, due to their lengthy tracklists and Greedo's off-kilter style. Here, the features keep Greedo's whine from becoming overwhelming and the top-notch production creates a consistency in song quality that is rare for Greedo's albums. Overall, the album is perhaps the best starting point to date for anybody looking to find out why every publication has been talking about Greedo in the last year. Greedo released a few projects this year, but I feel comfortable letting his two best albums share a single spot on my list. To me, they feel like two opposite sides of the same artist.

LISTEN TO: "10 Purple Summers" "Trap House (feat. Shoreline Mafia)" "Visions" + "Disco Shit (feat. Freddie Gibbs)" "Maria" "Soul Food (feat. Buddy)"

40.

Green and Gray - Pile

Exploding in Sound

Pile is the kind of band that you could base your entire personality on, like the Arctic Monkeys or BTS, except good. Plenty of people do it - Pile has arguably the most obsessive fanbase in modern east coast DIY music. Their sound lends itself to obsession. Frontman Rick Maguire is electric, his vocals ranging between a captivating drawl and a breathtaking roar with the click of a distortion pedal. Drummer Kris Kuss beats his kit (ew) like it is attacking him, and the overall songs have the same energy as a world-class fighter after one too many drinks. They stumble and bump into things, but there is an unspoken and awesome power behind their ungainly movements. Green and Gray is perhaps the most "Pile" Pile project yet. Every trait the band is worshipped for is at its apex here - the wild vocals, the brutal drums, the dissonant songwriting. In addition, Green and Gray is maybe the most immediate Pile record. The hooks are great, and not in the way that people call heavy music's hooks great because they don't actively sound awful. While not exactly accessible, many of the songs are thrillingly dynamic and are all much more digestible than the usual chaos of a Pile album. Pile has always been understatedly catchy, which has likely been at least somewhat responsible for their diehard fanbase, but it feels even more so on this album. Maguire and company do a fair deal of experimenting with their sound here as well, leading to probably the most varied and thrilling album of theirs yet. Green and Gray proves that you can still be punk in your 30's, that you only start getting old when you slow down.

LISTEN TO: "Your Performance" "Hair" "The Soft Hands of Stephen Miller"

39.

 

Norman Fucking Rockwell! - Lana Del Rey 

Polydor/Interscope

While I was not quite as crazy about the album as a certain publication owned by Conde Nast, it is impossible to deny the magic of Norman Fucking Rockwell!. There isn't much to dislike, except for the lack of tempo variation and Lana Del Rey's sometime-great-sometimes-abhorrent lyricism. The album is stunningly produced, filled to the brim with lovely melodies and the best songwriting of her career. While the lyrics do run a bit Urban Outfitters-core at times, they are still the best of Del Rey's career by a mile (and variation has never exactly been her strength). "Fuck it I love you" sounds like a rework of "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd (in a good way), while "The Greatest" is the best song Lana Del Rey has written to date. I think that is another important consideration - how much Lana Del Rey has evolved over the course of her career. To me, she has released dramatically better music with each album since her painfully generic debut, and this most recent effort is the first LDR record I have considered for my year-end list. By the way, she also manages to pull off a cover of an awful Sublime song, a feat which might be the record's crowning achievement. While I don't think I am ready to rewrite that downright embarrassing Pitchfork review, I am ready to say that Norman Fucking Rockwell! is a league above anything else Del Rey has ever done, and one of the best pop records of the year.

LISTEN TO: "Fuck it I love you" "Cinnamon Girl" "The greatest"

38.

What's Past is Prologue - Free Throw

Triple Crown Records

On What's Past is Prologue, it feels like Free Throw has entered the cheat codes for emo/pop punk music. One would think that entire album where every song is "the song", the one with the giant climax and the awesome breakdown that makes you feel like you're 16 again and your parents aren't divorced (your parents, not mine) and that the emotions you feel are perfectly normal (they weren't and still aren't), would get really old after like 3 songs. Turns out it doesn't. With What's Past is Prologue, Free Throw have redeemed themselves after their 2017 release Bear Your Mind, which I felt was disappointing. In fact, this may be their most consistently enjoyable album yet. That album felt like it took the wind out of the band's sails, halting the untouchable reputation the band seemed to have in the DIY community. What's Past is Prologue puts the ship back at full speed, hurtling towards pop-punk nirvana. Picking three favorite songs from this album to recommend is impossible. It feels as if every song here is so massive and so well crafted that they all compete for the spot. Yet, it doesn't feel tired by the end of the album. Even though every song sounds like it wants to the one that gives you frisson, the album cuts itself off at a lean 38 minutes before anything feels like it is repeating. If you want a pop-punk album that feels like a shot of pure but miserable adrenaline, then this album would be worth a listen.


LISTEN TO: "Smokes, Let's Go" "The Corner's Dilemma" "Anaconda Vice"

37.

Songs for the Firing Squad / The Correlation Between Entrance and Exit

Wounds - SeeYouSpaceCowboy...
Pure Noise Records

SeeYouSpaceCowboy's two 2019 releases capture the real-time evolution of one of the most captivating bands in extreme music today. Songs for the Firing Squad is a compilation of the band's previous material plus two new songs, while The Correlation Between Entrance and Exit Wounds is the band's formal debut record. I consider them to be almost equal works of art in their own distinct ways. Songs for the Firing Squad captures the band at a raw potential phase. The songs are layered in a thick level of irony, all the way from their hilarious titles to their overdone lyrics to their cartoonishly complex songwriting and ridiculous breakdowns. This all comes off as somewhat insulting to the album, but I promise it isn't. The appeal is in the over the top nature of the album. The band self-describes this period of their career as sasscore, and many of the genre's elements are present and pulled off exceptionally. The Correlation Between Entrance and Exit Wounds, however, is a different animal altogether. Gone are most of the sasscore elements, and they have been replaced with pure metalcore. It is the sound of a band that is taking itself quite seriously and has the skills to justify it. The songs are much less dizzying (although still far from easy to follow), but what they lose in unpredictability they gain in kinetic energy. The relative simplification of the band's sound paid huge dividends in the heavy department, and everything the band abandoned during the evolution in sound is more than compensated by the new areas of focus for the group. If you, like me, were disappointed by the selection of metal in 2019 and haven't given SeeYouSpaceCowboy... a try, they just might be enough to change your mind.

LISTEN TO: "Self Help Specialist Ends Own Life" "I Am a Trans-Continental Railroad, Please Run a Train on Me" "Fashion Statements of the Socially Aware" + "Armed With Their Teeth" 'With High Hopes and Clipped Wings" "Late December"

36.

Baby on Baby / KIRK - DaBaby

South Coast Music Group/Interscope Records

I feel like it is fine to include both of Dababy's 2019 releases in this spot because they are the same album. While variation does not come naturally to Mr. Baby, his formula is certainly effective. DaBaby's rapid-fire flow and brash sense of confidence make for addicting music that somehow functions as both pop-rap and anti-pop rap at once. While there are few traditional choruses to be found on either album, the songs are effortlessly catchy and strangely anthemic. The lyricism is brutally violent at times, there is a dominating sense of cartoonish humor to both projects (an impression that is helped by DaBaby's music videos). Most important is the overwhelming sense of charisma that DaBaby emanates. It really is the driving force of these albums - how else could the man get away with writing the same song 26 times? I think a lot of it comes down to DaBaby's delivery ("Suge" pun not intended). There is something about his voice that sits perfectly for a lot of people. It's laid back and smooth but aggressive, and confident without being arrogant. It certainly makes the repetitive songwriting easier to stomach. It's pretty hard to have paid attention to music in 2019 without hearing at least the hits from either album here, but behind the Top 40 songs, DaBaby has a real flair for creating catchy and fun tracks that make for consistent and endlessly enjoyable albums.

LISTEN TO: "Baby Sitter (feat. Offset)" "Joggers (Stunna 4 Vegas)" "Walker Texas Ranger" + "BOP" "TOES (feat. Lil Baby & Moneybagg Yo) "XXL"


35.

Luna Lake - Luna Lake

Luna Lake

Maybe I'm going crazy but I swear that blue-eyed soul is having another moment, through the lens of indie rock. Perhaps it is due to hip-hop and R&B's chart dominance during the formative years of the new crop of indie artists, but it feels like soul music is having an extremely white revival as of late, usually to mixed quality. Most of these artists make music that ranges from painfully bland to great, and Luna Lake lands near the top of the better side of things. They don't do anything specific to stand out from this wave of psychedelic indie soul artists - they are just better in pretty much every conceivable way. The songwriting, the instrumentation, the vocals, the hooks, the lyrics, everything is a cut above anything else you could find in the genre. The vocals are particularly captivating. Funnily enough, Luna Lake is too small for me to even find the name of their singer, but believe me. The second you hear the subtle rasp in his voice on "Even Eve" or the inflections on "Pros and Cons" it becomes immediately apparent that Luna Lake is a cut above their peers vocally. The vocals also often drive home the "a-ha" moments in the songs, like the soulful, building intro of "Even Eve", the soaring outro of "Pros and Cons" or the delicate chorus of "Grand Scheme". Another point of note is the beautiful guitar work featured throughout the album. The playing often follows and interacts with the vocals, but then switches around and will play with the deceptively complex drumming or tasteful bass. The guitar here is often given priority in the song next to the vocals, and its for good reason. The playing is genuinely gorgeous. Luna Lake is a criminally small band, and if you like their music you should consider supporting them at their Bandcamp. 

LISTEN TO: "Pros and Cons" "Even Eve" "Grand Scheme"

34.

American Football (LP3) - American Football 

Polyvinyl Record Co.

If you had any (reasonable) anxiety regarding the quality of the American Football reunion, lay it to rest. American Football is back and, honestly, they're as good as they were on their debut. That is likely an unpopular take, but I wholeheartedly believe it. On LP3, American Football has captured everything that made their debut a classic, got rid of the once endearing angst that would now be embarrassing, and added a bunch of perfectly placed modern concessions like features and songs that actually have a vocal melody (!). It really is the perfect American Football album, because it is a flawless translation of their sound in 1999 to 2019. It would be natural to be skeptical of the possibility of translating the beauty of music made by a group of 20-year-olds 20 years ago, especially after the hit/miss nature of the band's return album, but if you can doubt the presence of American Football after this album, you must be doing it to piss me off. The songs on this record are densely layered and positively ethereal, while also utilizing a range of instruments and percussion that uniquely contribute to the atmosphere of the record. Overall, it leads to the most sonically diverse album for American Football yet. The band finally makes songs that aren't 'slow' with "Heir Apparent" and "I Can't Feel You (feat. Rachel Goswell)" and they utilize bells and droning (as opposed to their usual intricate picking) to perfection on the opener "Silhouettes". The overall effect, between the incredible instrument density and the newfound melodic nature of the vocals, is an incredibly relaxing and sonically pleasing record that is additionally able to maintain a lot of the emotional heft of their debut record without reverting to teenage hysterics. It's an incredible record, and one of the best rock releases of the year.

LISTEN TO: "Silhouettes" "Uncomfortably Numb (feat. Hayley Williams)" "Life Support"

33.

Cuz I Love You - Lizzo

Nice Life - Atlantic Records

I get it. A lot of people don't like Lizzo. I understand it. Some of the stuff she has done has been unacceptable or "cringe" as I think the kids say. That all being said, I don't care. The album is too good for it to really matter to me. Look, I don't make the rules. If you write a pop song as good as "Like A Girl" you get to publicly execute one (1) minimum wage worker on social media. You write "Juice" and you get to walk around at a Laker's game with your asscheeks out. It's the law, baby. I can understand the claims against Lizzo's character (which is admittedly grating at times) as well as her music. There are a few common points of view on the matter. The whole "love yourself" message of her work is probably hard to get behind when you hate yourself as much as I assume anybody who is still reading this far into my list does. You also probably don't like fat women. I, personally, am better than that, but if that's who you are then so it goes, I guess. Yes, that does make me a better person than you. I'll go as far as to say "Truth Hurts" is an awful song and I'm glad we briefly lived in a time where that song wasn't everywhere, yet between the album's release and the release of the deluxe version. Aside from that, the album is pretty fantastic. Lizzo easily chameleons her way through just about every style of modern pop-rap/R&B, sounding as natural over a more traditional soul arrangement ("Cuz I Love You") as she does over a club beat ("Tempo (feat. Missy Elliott)"). In general, this is a good mood album. If you don't generally find yourself in a good mood, Cuz I Love You is gonna sound about as pleasant as sticking a sewing needle into your ear canal and trying to write your name on your eardrum. If an extravagantly optimistic pop album is exactly what you need in life, you can't do much better than this one.

LISTEN TO: "Like A Girl" "Juice" "Jerome"

32.

I'm Not Getting Any Taller - Daisy the Great 

Paper Moon Records

I'm Not Getting Any Taller is kinda like being forced to hang out with a bunch of theater kids, only to realize that they're actually pretty cool. I'm Not Getting Any Taller has extreme theater kid energy (the group's lead duo met in the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU), and if that is a deal-breaker for you then you might never enjoy this record as much as I do. By that I mean, if this record was a person it would probably have a finsta where it posted pictures of itself crying and eating junk food. It definitely had a Harry Potter phase that it pretends to feel ashamed of as an adult, but only because J.K. Rowling is a TERF. Personally, the cutesy/quirky lyricism does not drive me crazy like I imagine it does to some people. Instead, I hear a gorgeous record with some of the best harmonies and melodies of anything released this year. The vocals are so pleasant on this record, the instrumentals don't matter in the slightest. I didn't even realize they were playing instruments until like my 4th listen. The instrumentals, luckily, are also perfectly complementary to the exceptional vocals. Songs like "Company" perfectly exemplify the group's dynamic. The instrumental serves as a platform for the vocals to work their magic, never offensive and subtly guiding the mood for the harmonies. The voices wrap around each other until they become an indistinguishable conglomerate. Additionally, the group's four-part harmonies work in a wide range of contexts, from the thrown-together affectation of the opener "Idkw" to the meticulously crafted ballad "Dips". I'm Not Getting Any Taller is a legitimately fun and easy to enjoy album, as long as you can get past the memories of kids who would sing their Spanish presentations in high school. 

LISTEN TO: "Dips" "Company" "Specimen" 

31.

Cowboy Diaries EP - Blonder

Cool World Records 

One of my favorite genres of music is "vaguely classic rock inspired" and Cowboy Diaries is a perfect example of what that tag means inside my head. Every song on the EP feels in some way inspired by classic rock, but my mind blanks every time I try to connect the sound to any particular artist. It is less the aping of a classic rock artists' sound, and more the fact that these songs simply sound classic. The chord changes and melodies are immediately familiar, in an extremely satisfying way. There are streaks of The Beatles, T. Rex, Harry Nilsson, and other great pop songcrafters throughout every track on this EP. This isn't to say the album sounds dated, because it doesn't. There is a distinctly modern flair to the EP, especially in the subtly psychedelic touches added to most of the songs. It more feels like an update to a classic feeling. The EP's style of lo-fi production adds to this "old but new" feeling quite a bit. Everything feels distinctly lo-fi, yet individually every instrument comes through clearly and has its place in the mix. This is important, as many of the mixes involve piano, guitar, drums, bass, horns, vocals, and effects all at once. It is actually impressive that so many instruments are able to be clearly communicated while still keeping their analog warmth. While the EP doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel, I don't think anybody who makes it a minute into "Long Way to Go" really cares. Why would you, when the hooks are that good? There is certainly something to be said about how enjoyable solid pop songwriting can be. Cowboy Diaries is an entertaining, replayable, and good-humored EP that indicates a ton of potential for Blonder's debut record, which is hopefully coming out soon. If it is anything like this EP, you can expect it on my list whenever it is released.

LISTEN TO: "Long Way to Go" "Elegant Girl Inc." "Baby"

30.

H.A.Q.Q - Liturgy

YLYLCYN

2019, overall, was a pretty awful year for metal. Most of the "good" metal releases this year were comebacks from bands who had their heyday 20-30 years ago. Obviously, all these releases were "critically acclaimed", as most metal critics are either obsessed with authenticity to the point of delirium or so wrapped up in being a metalhead that they've actually forgotten what good music sounds like. Most of the metal reviewed this year, to be quite honest, sucked ass. This is not the case for Liturgy's H.A.Q.Q. H.A.Q.Q  does the opposite of suck ass, actually. It's really really good, or whatever the opposite of sucking ass is. Frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, in addition to having the best musician name ever, has hit a new level of avant-garde black metal experimentalism here. H.A.Q.Q successfully blends major key black metal (a sound that Liturgy helped pioneer back in 2011), glitch electronics, and classical music into one gigantic sound. It's easily the best thing Liturgy has done since their debut record. The new sound has some downright mind-blowing moments, like in the second half of "HAJJ" when glitches are used to disrupt the band's trance-like, as well as to segue into the earth-shattering breakdowns that close the song. On paper, the mix of black metal, classical instrumentation, and noisy electronics seem like an impossible mix. They seem too disparate to fit seamlessly, yet Hunt-Hendrix has devised a way to trace the common thread between them all. Impressively enough, that thread is not "all these genres can all be noisy or complex or heavy sounding." The common thread between the genres is a sense of transcendence, a larger than life quality. It is definitely a mixture that begs to be heard, and not described. H.A.Q.Q is one of the most inventive and unique listens of the year, and worth a try if you are looking to step outside your comfort zone by quite a bit. 

LISTEN TO: "HAJJ" "VIRGINITY" "HAQQ"

29.

Come In - Weatherday

Porcelain Music

Come In has been hailed as an artistic landmark for lo-fi music, and it's not hard to see why. There are few lo-fi albums with this level of artistic ambition, especially outside of Car Seat Headrest and Phil Elverum's work. The scale of this project, especially considering the quality of its recording, is unreal. It almost doesn't seem possible for the songs to fit in their recordings. A warning is often issued with this album, and it makes sense. If you do not like rough recordings, sloppy performances, or grating noises, this album's charm will not work on you. It doesn't matter how much you appreciate the grandiose songwriting, this album will be a tough listen. It isn't exactly harsh noise, but as far as noise-pop goes this is fairly difficult, especially during songs where the guitars and drums and synths are all competing to be the most aggravating instrument in the mix. Once you are able to look past or possibly enjoy the recording quality, Come In is one of the most emotionally rewarding pieces of music this year. There is a strong sense of genuine passion in these songs, and it is only accentuated by the sloppy playing, piercing volume, and rough vocals. Yet, this album isn't all fight and no finesse. There are some truly stunning moments here, especially when the album uses background vocals. The outro of "Mio, Min Mio" is one of the most captivating and energizing moments in guitar music this year. This moment, and moments like this throughout the record, feel like watching Citizen Kane on a tiny box television. The grandeur is still palpable, but it is morphed and recontextualized through the medium of its presentation. If this sounds like the lo-fi production is limiting the album, it couldn't be further from the truth. Like any great album in the genre, the production is what gives it its charm. It simply would not be the album it is if it sounded any different.

LISTEN TO: "Older Than Before (Oswald Made No Way for Himself" "Mio, Min Mio" "Porcelain Hands"

28.

Nothing Great About Britain - Slowthai

True Panther/Method

Until this year, British rap made me laugh because it made me think of this tweet. I think if I had tried listening to British rap before I saw the tweet, I would have liked it sooner but that didn't happen and here we are. I just couldn't take rapping in a British accent seriously. 2019, however, saw a slew of great releases from British rappers that turned my opinion around. My favorite of the bunch is Slowthai's Nothing Great About Britain. With this album, Slowthai has released one of the most impressive and fully realized debut records in recent memory, hip-hop or otherwise. Slowthai analyzes the full spectrum of British life with his keen eye, pointing out both hilarious and tragic details with equal parts wit and aggression. Sometimes his attention swings political, like on the opener "Nothing Great About Britain". Sometimes it swings social, like on the Mura Masa produced electro-punk track "Doorman". Sometimes it gets personal, like on the touching "Northampton's Child". Sometimes he's just having fun (see "Inglorious (feat. Skepta)"). Whatever you value in hip-hop, Slowthai does it well. He can rap with the best of them, but he can cut loose as well. He's as capable of crafting heartfelt ballads as he is throwing down high-energy tracks with expensive features. No matter the subject, Slowthai demands attention. His nasal delivery and off-kilter flows force the listener's attention, not to mention the incredibly varied production. All this plus Slowthai's outspoken politics and antics create a debut record and artist image that captivates effortlessly. For an admittedly shy person, Slowthai is a natural at getting people's attention when he wants it. 

LISTEN TO: "Nothing Great About Britain" "Doorman" "Toaster"

27.

Apple Crumble - Winston Surfshirt

Sweat It Out

There's a lot to be said about Winston Surfshirt's second album, Apple Crumble, but absolutely none of it will be in regard to the group changing their sound. If you gave Apple Crumble a paternity test with the band's debut Sponge Cake, Jerry Springer would just spontaneously appear and kick you in the chest. The two albums are nearly identical, except Apple Crumble does it all better. Winston Surfshirt's mix of electro-soul and hip-hop was far from tired after their debut, and Apple Crumble finally squeezes every drop of potential from the sound. If the band were to release another album with this same sound, it would be time to have a discussion about diminishing returns, but for the time being only praise is due. The band has taken their nocturnal, neon lights sound and beefed it up with fatter production, better rapping, more varied instrumentals, and even better hooks (which were undoubtedly the first album's strength). Don't let the bright cover fool you - this is prime nighttime music right here. Everything about the album sounds like driving downtown at night. There's the hum of the kind of excitement that accompanies the sun going down, plus the hazy confidence of that excitement. Everywhere there are flashes of neon, shocks of white light from the open liquor stores, and the slightly ominous yellow glow of the streetlights. Moving away from abstraction, Apple Crumble is equal parts soulful, funky, heady, and downright fun across its perfectly paced 44 minute run time. It is one of the most accessible albums of the year, and also some of the best pm music out there.

LISTEN TO: "NobodyLikeYou" "Smile" "Someone New"

26.

Flat Earth Surf Club - Goldwash

Goldwash

Goldwash retreated from the East coast, where he studied classical music and jazz at Yale, to Los Angeles for the recording of Flat Earth Surf Club, and you can hear it on the record. Gone is the dancy thump and cold electronics of his debut EP LDR, and the rich electro-soul of the Episode EP has been largely stripped away as well. What's left is the most essential Goldwash project to date. All the essential elements have been retained - Goldwash's delicate falsetto and flawless sense of melody, the brilliant electronic instrumentals, and the musical flourishes that keep each track wholly unique from one another are all present and better than ever. Yet, songs like "You Don't Want to Feed the Fire Anymore" and "Over Again (feat. Baird" represents a new level of minimalism for Goldwash. The former is a lovely soul ballad with a chorus that is as ethereal as it is catchy, while the latter is a meditative track based on a looping fingerpicked melody with a gorgeous turnaround. They are both some of the quietest work he has ever done, but they are also some of the best. "Set in Motion" feels a bit like some of his previous work, but in typical Goldwash fashion the distorted guitars at the end make the song entirely unique. That brings me to one of my favorite qualities about Goldwash's music: the way he gives every song something special. Take, for example, the funky wah-wah guitars on LDR's "Separate" or the woodwinds on Episode's "Why Hide It". Every song in Goldwash's discography shows an attempt at growth and experimentation, and it does a lot from keeping his sound from getting tired. It also helps that he has one of the best ears for vocal melodies in the business. That helps quite a bit as well. Flat Earth Surf Club is a brilliant debut for one of my most anticipated artists of the last few years, and I am eagerly awaiting his next move. 

LISTEN TO: "You Don't Want to Feed the Fire Anymore" "Set In Motion" "That Buzz (feat. Ayanna Woods)"

25.

Fake Blood - Heart Attack Man

You Did This / Triple Crown Records

When an album that has a song that opens "You told me you're gonna kill yourself / and that it's all cause of me / you said read it in my suicide letter / but I never found your obituary" and then later has the line "I don't hope you're doing better / I'll just cut my losses" you know it means business. Fake Blood is the sophomore album for  (pop-ish) punk band Heart Attack Man, and it is their most complete work yet. I was a huge fan of their debut The Manson Family, but I am fully prepared to call Fake Blood a better record. It is far more consistent on a song to song to song basis, for starters. There really isn't a single weak track on this entire record. There are still songs here that match the level of quality set by songs like "Funhouse Mirrors" and "Cool Kids Table" from the debut, but where that record lulled Fake Blood spits, snarls, and thrashes. Another driving factor is the band's newfound tightness. The instrumentals here aren't necessarily complicated, but the upgraded drumming and overall band cohesion on tracks like "Low Hanging Fruit" gives things a sense of urgency that was desperately missing from the first album. Aside from that, the band also shows a great improvement lyrically and melodically as well. The album, while definitely dark, has a hilarious tongue in cheek sense of humor to it as well. The cheesy hardcore grunt on "Low Hanging Fruit" makes me laugh every time, while the lyrics manage to straddle an impossibly thin line between heartbreakingly sincere and ironically cynical. Perhaps the best example of this is "Asking for It". To this day, I have no idea if this song is supposed to be a hilariously over the top parody or a genuine portrait of growing out of one's insecurities and overcoming the people who took advantage of your weakness at the time. Either way, it is the pinnacle of the Heart Attack Man modus operandi. It's partially ironic, partially heartfelt, heavy but catchy as hell, and a ton of cathartic fun.

LISTEN TO: "Low Hanging Fruit" "Cut My Losses" "Asking for It"

24.

Lousy - Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold

Lauren Records

I may have said this before, but Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold is a band that makes me want to take every guitar I own out to the street and throw them through the windshield of my own car. Don't let the self-deprecating title fool you - they are so impossibly good at playing music that it makes me feel like there is no point in trying to be good at anything. You cannot compete with this band on a technical level. You'll have to make up some ground in raw emotion or ambition or something that doesn't require you to practice something until you're good at it. From the intro of the album, it feels like PALHTH is trying to remind me how bad I am at life compared to them. Who opens an emo album with a full barbershop quartet style acapella track? From there, it's just the band's signature blast of dizzying playing, fantastic hooks, and charming lyrics. Yet, Lousy is different. The production is a dramatic change for the band, in that it is far louder and the distortion is quite a bit heavier. After reading that, anybody familiar with their previous work should feel a sense of instant anxiety. Both of those things offer up the potential for the band's busy sound to become muddied and indecipherable, but luckily that is not the case. Somehow the band has managed to fit all of their notes within the limitations of our ears, and I personally think the new sound is better than their old one. The distortion adds a wonderful heft to the album's bigger moments that I felt was often more implied than explicit on their previous work. My only issue with the album is that some of the tracks, like "Water", feel like they weren't fleshed out enough, or that they merely exist as a break between two particularly bombastic songs. It is somewhat disappointing to hear a flash of brilliance in a song, a moment or riff that could take a song into the stratosphere, and then have it disappear as quickly as it showed up. It is largely a product of the band fitting so many ideas into each song, as inevitably some are going to be less developed than others. This was a problem that I had with the band's previous material, but as a whole, the band has done a better job at milking their ideas more and savoring the best moments of their songs instead of moving through them in 2 bars to jump to a different idea. I can say without exaggeration that Lousy's high points are some of the best guitar-based music released in this decade, and it feels completely realistic to me that by their next album, PALHTH could be the most formidable band in punk music. 

LISTEN TO: "One Wrong Turn" "Times Tables" "Subject to Change"

23.

Chaparral - Walter Etc.

Counter Intuitive Records

Walter Etc. has been a thousand different bands over the course of this decade, to varying degrees of success. They started as an ultra lo-fi folk project, morphed into a less lo-fi folk project, and then switched to fuzzy indie-pop for their debut record in 2017. I enjoyed that album, but it felt like the band wasn't fully comfortable in their own skin yet. Chaparral fixes that. The things that make Walter Etc. consistently one of my favorite projects all show up here, in a way that felt missing when they first switched their sound. The hyper-observant lyrics, bouncy instrumentals, and deceptively catchy hooks are back and better than ever. The most important translation the band makes, however,  is their charm. The band's early recordings had a palpable sense of charm to them, largely thanks to their DIY folk instrumentation and nervous lyrics. This is gonna sound really stupid, but the band's lead singer and guitar player (Walter himself) does a bouncy little dance when he performs that perfectly sums up the band's energy. I've seen the group 3 times now, and he does it every time during every song and the dance fits all of them. All of their best songs have the same feeling to them - buoyant and jumpy. The band is at their best when their sounds feel light of heart and light of foot, when they are breezy little ruminations on life and love. Chaparral accomplishes this feeling better than anything since their folk days, and better than just about any pop-punk/surf album this year. On a surface level basis, this record is the best produced and best written Walter Etc album yet. The surfy indie-pop sound here is perfect for the band (see: above), but it also gives an extra dimension to the lyrics that have come to define the band. There are so many times where the lyrics are driven home by chord changes and variation in tempo here, it's foolish to not put the band equal to the words in terms of generating the overall mood of songs. Walter Etc. has come a long way this decade, and at this rate, I'll probably end up seeing them a few dozen more times, likely as they are moving into the black metal phase of their career. That would rule.

LISTEN TO: "Tolerance Break" "Topanga" "Flat Earth Angel"

22.

Schlagenheim - black midi

Rough Trade

The amount of hype black midi generated this year was a dangerous game to play. It's like walking a tightrope, which is definitely something I know things about. Lean too far in either direction, and the ride is over. Underperform, and you are forgotten instantly. Try too hard, and people begin to resent you. Ride the middle, and you get to drop the biggest indie debut of the year for guitar music. Mission accomplished. A big factor in black midi pulling off their hype and not going the same route that Superorganism traveled last year is the fact that they are actually good. Really good. Good in a way that makes you wonder if they can ever pull it off again. My bet is yes. The band is blindingly talented; the drumming is nothing short of world-class, and the band is able to lock in at tricky tempos like they are second nature. Additionally, black midi has a sterling reputation as a live band, and a live performance from them was actually one of the things that put them on the map. This reputation is quite evident on Schlagenheim. Many of these songs feel designed to be as much fun as possible live, especially when the band rolls out one of their usual song structure tricks. The trick they pulled here is actually a fairly standard one for mathy music - you can have all the inaccessible parts with weird time signatures and silly vocals you want as long as they snap into some good old 4/4 thrashing at the end of the song. black midi utilizes this trick often, and it usually results in the album's high points. When they don't do that one, they usually will just let their songs disintegrate into a mess of noise, which does the job equally well. Either way, you get a whole lot of tension generated during the song that gets released during the outro, and that is a rush that pretty much never gets old. The quiet/loud and tension/release dynamic of their songs is likely a large factor in their success because if they only went with their inaccessible material (of which there is plenty) they would have no fans, and if they only went with the release moments they would be considered "generic" or whatever music critics call bands they like but know they can't review positively. I don't mean to reduce black midi's music to a system or to call it formulaic, as it is some of the most unique and exhilarating music I've heard all year. I'm more just explaining what I enjoy about it, which they happen to use fairly often. All in all, Schlagenheim is one of the most wildly inventive and instantly energizing albums of the year and an indie-rock debut that seems to be setting up an exciting career for one of the most talented young bands to come into the genre in a while.

LISTEN TO: "953" "Near DT, MI" "Bmbmbm"

21.

Titanic Rising - Weyes Blood

Sub Pop

Much has been written this year about Titanic Rising, and I probably have nothing particularly unique to say on it because of that. It is one of the year's best and most thoroughly reviewed albums, and even after a cursory listen it's not hard to hear why. Her update of 70's pop-folk and soft rock artists like Joni Mitchell, The Carpenters, and Harry Nilsson is simply spellbinding. Gorgeous orchestration, fascinating instrumental choices (just listen to that slide guitar on "Andromeda") and Mering's divine voice make this album a sonic treat, even just on the surface. Diving a little deeper, however, reveals the album's true selling points. The album has a strange sense of dread throughout it, which is one of the most talked-about aspects of her sound but is so tangible that it is a mandatory mention. Every song feels like when you wake up in the morning knowing you have something miserable to do that afternoon, but you still have to try to enjoy your morning. It's a truly bizarre thing to behold, in that this lethargic eerieness is so subtle but so definitive. I think it goes without saying that this album runs pretty high in melodrama, and if that is a deal-breaker for you, I suggest you get over it and try the album anyway. The theatrics on Titanic Rising are less "bad soap opera" and more "good performance of Shakespeare" and are honestly what makes the album's sound work at times. One of Weyes Blood's most impressive skills is her ability to look backward (I'm not gonna be the ten millionth person to write at length about her "nostalgia futurist" quote) and pick out the defining elements of 70's pop and put them into her own sound. Mering has keenly noticed that part of what makes artists like the ones I listed previously so enjoyable is a sense of sepia-tinted, larger than life, woe-is-me attitude. It's the kind of thing that only feels relatable when the song is playing because it is a bigger feeling than any emotionally stable human regularly feels. Titanic Rising is a uniquely atmospheric and lushly produced look into the mind (and love life) of one of music's most interesting songwriters today and an album of the year lock for thousands of art school graduates around the nation.

LISTEN TO: "Andromeda" "Something to Believe" "Movies"

20.

Luminous, Abysmal - The Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach

The Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach

In addition to being one of the nicest people I have ever met online, Lonny Starsky is also one of the most ridiculously talented. According to Apple Music's classification system, Luminous, Abysmal is their second album and it represents a huge artistic leap from their first album, which I considered to be excellent. While I still regard their earlier work the same, I feel that Luminous, Abysmal is a fantastic step forward. It's hard to decide which element of the album I enjoy the most, so I will start with the hooks, which stood out to me from my very first listen. This album is impossibly catchy. Lonny has such a unique but distinct way with writing melodies, I think I could recognize one of their melodies anywhere. "Lacuna" is the kind of song that you find stuck in your head when you wake up a week after the first time you listen to the album. Other songs on the album are just as sticky and are so much fun on a purely melodic basis. Lyrically, however, is where Lonny really impresses me. "Shadowban" is especially unreal, and far beyond my capacity to fully understand, but like the hooks above, there isn't a single word on a single song here that wasn't written with the utmost care. Another aspect of this album that I love is the album's pacing. While this isn't a particularly noticeable factor on many albums, it feels particularly significant here. I love the placement of "The Frizzies" between Redveil's superb track and the album's instrumental. I could probably write about this album all day, but overall I really hope Lonny is proud of what they created here. Please feel free to send a few bucks Lonny's way for their music and buy their merch if you can (they have incredible merch, google it).

LISTEN TO: "Lacuna" "Welcome to the Shit Show" "Shadowban"

19.

Ghosteen - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Ghosteen Ltd.

This year, I listened to 22 Nick Cave albums in a week to prepare for the release of Ghosteen. Nick Cave is the sort of artist that demands a working knowledge of his music for full appreciation. That's not to say that if you have never heard a Nick Cave album, this record will be a gigantic confusing mess to you. I'm not not saying that, but I'm also not saying it. What I am saying is that Nick Cave is an artist who seems to make albums that are more enjoyable within the context of his career. To me, part of what makes Ghosteen so enjoyable is its floating, almost ambient sound relative to the grounded, booming Skeleton Tree, and both are significant in their departure from his traditional sound. The sound and concept of the album are interwoven, mutually benefitting each other throughout the course of Cave's grieving process. Ghosteen is perhaps Nick Cave's most delicate album to date, but also his most powerful. If Skeleton Tree felt like Cave's reaction to the tragic death of his son, Ghosteen is closer to a document of the full experience. It is often a dire album, but also a comforting and uplifting one. The album's structure seems to alternate between these two moods before reaching the second side, where everything seems to reach a higher level. This is definitely an album that can summon tears, but then again so are most Nick Cave albums in one form or another. Cave's trademark skills are as sharp as ever, from his allusion heavy poetry to his booming voice. Obviously, the energy here is subdued but Cave sounds like he has never been in better command of his powers. Sonically, this album is wholly unique in his discography. Never before has Cave made something that feels so minimal and maximal at the same time. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, but every note here feels like it is making the most of its presence, and there isn't a single out of place sound on the record. There's something eerie about its peacefulness at times, and even the most gorgeous songs here have something about them that gives off a sense of uneasiness. Ghosteen can be more than a bit unsettling at times, but always gives off a larger feeling of contentment in this face of this tragedy. It's a masterwork from one of history's most consistently great artists, and an album that cannot be skipped by any music fan.

LISTEN TO: "Night Raid" "Ghosteen" "Hollywood"

18.

Inglaterra - Dead Horse Beats

Bastard Jazz Recordings

As far as individual songs go, "Easy Nothing" might be my favorite song of the year. What a song, perfect on every level. Lyrically, melodically, structurally, contextually, and every other -ly that can be applied to a song, it has it. There are few songs I have ever heard that can put me in as specific a mood like that one. Based just on the strength of that song, this album would still probably make this list. When an album has a song on that level, it threatens to overwhelm the record. It might prevent one from ever getting to the other songs, or it might cast an impossible to overcome shadow over the rest of the record. Luckily, the rest of Inglaterra rises to the challenge. I think the most impressive thing about the record, along with the pristine melodies, excellent production, and surreal lyricism, is the way it is able to reach outside of the confines of downtempo in order to create a consistently varied and interesting album. Downtempo inherently runs the risk of being reduced to well-produced elevator music, but Dead Horse Beats incorporates enough variation to prevent any of the music here from being wallpaper. Instead, the album is able to generate a consistent mood without going stale, which is a feat when the genre of music is meant to be tranquil and inoffensive. Splashes of horns, some of the best soul melodies I've ever heard, and an understated sense of funkiness keep things alive, while the cloudy synths and warm production make everything feel covered in a big soft blanket. The album is bristling with energy (be it kinetic, sensual, or just funky) but in a muted way that keeps a relaxed feel throughout. I really cannot overstate how much this album would appeal to somebody who uses the word "vibes" to describe music that puts them in a good mood. Inglaterra is an incredible piece of mood music, and a great option for the next time you're feeling burnt out on the volume and business of your standard genres. 

LISTEN TO: "Inglaterra" "Easy Nothing" "Where Is My Other Half"

17.

All Mirrors - Angel Olsen

Jagjaguwar

There is a good chance that, at this rate, Angel Olsen goes down as one of the all-time great indie rock artists, and it's more than deserved. Five albums in and she has never even sniffed a misstep, all the while creating the best album of her career with each successive release. All Mirrors is her biggest risk to date. It sees her abandoning the guitar-driven country/folk that built her reputation as one of the most impressive songwriters in music for bombastic synth-pop to wonderful effect. It would initially seem like a difficult adjustment to anyone who was a fan of her earlier work, but the transition happens without a hitch. Olsen and her personality are so deeply embedded into the sound of this record that the change in sound does not come with any change in energy. Leaving aside the cosmetics of each song here, the same Angel Olsen is still distinctly at the helm of everything. If anything, the album weirdly proves the restrictiveness of her previous sound. Looking back at those albums, they feel almost limited compared to All Mirrors in their willingness to adhere to the genre requirements of the sound that made her name. While that is obviously not true, it is could be said (by me) All Mirrors feels much more expansive and effective than her previous work. Effective here is being used for the lack of a better term because her past music had no issues in their effectiveness. I moreso mean that All Mirrors feels much more willing to bend the rules to Olsen's vision in order to generate a specific impression than her previous work. All over this album are signs that Olsen is a talent on the level of Radiohead, David Bowie, and other bands/artists that were able to change their sound at will while still retaining their identity. Much has been made critically of All Mirrors this year, and it should come as no surprise to her fans that the album deserves its praise. Angel Olsen has created a career-defining album that still feels like another peak in her long series of winning albums.

LISTEN TO: 'New Love Cassette" "Spring" "Tonight"

16.

SOUND & FURY - Sturgill Simpson

Elektra Records

There's something to be said about the artistic merit of just getting really, really pissed off and recording an album. More often than not, the quality of the resulting record is directly proportional to the degree of anger unlocked. On SOUND & FURY, Sturgill Simpson is livid. He's livid at the way the psychedelic brilliance of his earlier work has been repainted as infantile hedonism. He's livid at the fakes who dominate country music while selling out the authenticity that the artform was originally founded upon. He's livid at the culture he lives in, one that couldn't give a shit about anything other than its own self-preservation. He might even be a little livid at himself. Whatever Sturgill Simpson is mad at, I hope a member of his touring entourage buys a cattle poker and occasionally sticks him with it, just to keep the blood boiling, because this album is incredible. Of the many albums this year with a major sound change, this might be my favorite transition. Simpson abandons the idyllic trippiness of his past work for a ZZ-Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd inspired groove that soundtracks a bunch of kickass tough-guy stuff like muscle cars, swearing, benders, mental illness, and not wanting to be friends with anybody. The lyrics for "Last Man Standing" make for the perfect mission statement for his new direction, the statement that makes you wish your car had 180 mph on the dashboard and that you never read that post from a guy who got permanent tinnitus from listening to his music too loudly. SOUND & FURY is one of those rare country albums that I would recommend to fans of any genre, from rock to pop to country itself. There is something so universally appealing about an upbeat rock groove, brilliantly fed-up lyrics, and general misbehavior. While I fully doubt that SOUND & FURY represents a permanent change for Sturgill Simpson, I am determined to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts. More importantly, it opens the door for other major sound shifts, and as long as Sturgill Simpson keeps the intense perfectionism of his career thus far I feel confident that he can handle anything.  

LISTEN TO: "Sing Along" "All Said and Done" "Last Man Standing"

15.

Dog Whistle - Show Me the Body

Loma Vista / Caroline International

Show Me the Body makes the kind of music where if they made a song about shooting guns at cops, you assume these guys shoot at cops. Their music comes with a conviction to it, a certain authenticity that you automatically assume to be valid just based on how it is presented. They make punk music that feels legitimately dangerous, and boy is that thrilling. Show Me the Body's mixture of post-punk, electronic noise, hip-hop, and hardcore is a sound with infinite possible variation, a style that should never get old as long as the group is able to modulate between their influences, and Dog Whistle is proof of that. Show Me the Body takes the brilliance of their debut and betters it 11 times here, and that's including the poetry interludes that I think I'm too dumb to fully understand. Although it would be foolish to doubt the group, especially after the string of incredible singles they dropped that didn't make the album, but for a minute the brilliance of Dog Whistle was not a given. Their mixtape Corpus was extremely disappointing to me, and the solely SMTB song on there was not as strong as the material from their first album. As soon as singles started dropping it was apparent that the band had lost nothing, but it was a bit of a relief to confirm that the band was in better shape than ever. Straight from the opener "Camp Orchestra" it's evident that Show Me the Body isn't playing around. While the song is somewhat accessible compared to some of their early work, it is possibly the heaviest thing the band has done so far. The song takes off at 100 mph and doesn't let up until the breakdown, which feels like hitting the brakes and flying through the windshield in slow motion. The song ends and immediately launches into the sludgy "Not for Love", an interlude, then the absolute crusher "Badge Grabber" and the band's credentials are reestablished plus some extra. The only times the album lets up is during the interludes, which are still pretty grating, and on the unsettlingly minimal "Arcanum", which might be the band's best quiet track to date. Aside from that the rest of the song's on the album move at a breakneck pace, and are some of the most invigorating music released this year. With Dog Whistle, Show Me the Body has confirmed their place as one of the most exciting bands in punk music, and in music as a whole.

LISTEN TO: "Camp Orchestra" "Forks and Knives" "Madonna Rocket"

14.

basking in the glow - Oso Oso

Triple Crown Records

On last year's list, I put my second favorite album of the year as Happiness Hours by The Sidekicks and marveled at that album's ability to sound like the sad edge every happy moment has when you're prone to overthinking it. I said that I had never heard an album that could sound so uneasily happy, and that was long before Oso Oso had dropped basking in the glow. There are two albums that can give me that feeling now. They both feel like watching the sunset on a perfect Sunday, knowing you have to wake up the next morning and go back to being miserable. Maybe this is surprising to you, because you've never actually listened to Oso Oso, but some of these songs are pretty sad behind their emo-pop instrumentals. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the happy music/sad lyrics trick, but I don't care, because Oso Oso is excellent at it. In fact, they're pretty excellent at everything. Jade Lilitri and Co. have always been a fantastic group (their previous album, The Yunahon Mixtape, was one of my highest rated albums of 2017) but basking in the glow is a different level entirely. The band doesn't achieve that jump in quality by switching their sound or making more complicated instrumentals, either. They make it happen by just making better songs. That sounds stupid, but it's true that this is a better album because it has better songs. They aren't really different (they're still bouncy emo-pop with a big emphasis on the pop) from the last album except that they sound better on the ears. The hooks are brighter and catchier, the songs are easier to follow and much bigger, and the subtle tension/release dynamics that the band has built a reputation with are pulled off with jaw-dropping skill. The title track is probably my favorite song here, as I feel that it shows off every way that the band has improved on their already stellar foundation. The riff is pure pleasure on the ears, the chorus is the catchiest thing the band has written, and the lyrics are nothing short of perfect for the song. In some ways, the song represents a shift towards more typical songwriting for the band, but the limitations of song structure actually help emphasize the band's strengths. While I would never say I wish Oso Oso was a straightforward pop-rock band, it just feels good to hear a triumphant single from one of my favorite bands. The band deserves every bit of popularity this record has gotten for them, and I wish Oso Oso the absolute best as they prepare to blow us all away again.

LISTEN TO: "the view" "basking in the glow" "wake up next to god"

13.

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? - Billie Eilish

Darkroom / Interscope

If Billie Eilish walks away from this year even just badly adjusted it'll be a miracle. 17-year-olds don't go from relative obscurity to being one of the biggest pop stars in the world in like 15 minutes without becoming hilariously disconnected from reality. I guess it's her fault for releasing one of the best pop debuts of the decade. There is something so essential about this album to understanding music in the year 2019, more so than almost any other album this year. I think when we look back at 2019, this album will be a pretty definitive lock for the "Most 2019 Sounding Record" award. There's just something so "this year" about the dubsteppy production, zoomer friendly lyrics (I don't know what this means, it just feels right to say), and the 2000s boy band hooks. It all feels like the perfect concoction of influences for an internet raised pop star of this era. Maybe the album will age poorly (probably not), but for now, it's close to perfect. Enough praise cannot be given to Eilish's brother Finneas here. The production is completely ridiculous, and it spans what feels like every popular music genre from 2000 to 2019 without feeling uninspired or derivative in any way. Eilish's lyrics and melodies are definitely equal or better in quality to the instrumentals, but it is doubtful that the songs here would be so infectious without his contributions. Still, it isn't even an argument that Eilish is the star of the record. Her breathy voice, phenomenal hooks, and immense personality steal the show at every opportunity. People like to criticize the album's lyrics, which is something I will never understand. I think the album's quality makes people forget that it was written by a 17-year-old girl. I feel like when that fact is kept in mind, the lyrics are not only justifiable but actually good. WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? may have one of the worst titles of the year, but don't let that turn you away from the album (as if you ever had a choice, with it being played everywhere you go). Billie Eilish is a superstar in the making, and it's going to be a thrill seeing how her career changes over time.

LISTEN TO: "xanny" "all the good girls go to hell" "wish you were gay"

12.

Gen 3 EP / Somewhere City - Origami Angel

Chatterbox Records

Origami Angel feel like they were designed in a lab to be as entertaining to me as possible. Their songs feel like riding a roller coaster in that they're fast, disorienting, and a possibly dangerous amount of fun. Origami Angel feels self-aware in the same way that a band like Van Halen does, almost like they are doing a half parody/half tribute to their genre. The blinding technical skills and comically gigantic songs contribute greatly to this impression, this idea that Origami Angel is having so much fun making their songs that it sounds like they are mocking their competition. It almost feels unfair to say the word "competition" here, because Origami Angel truly has no competition in this lane of emo music. The Gen 3 EP is just about the most entertaining way to spend 8 minutes released this year. It's a long YouTube video worth of whirlwind punk music that is full to the brim with mind-melting playing and hooks so good they belong on a Top 40 station. Somewhere City makes Gen 3 look like child's play. Only the EP's can stand toe to toe with the juggernaut that is Somwhere City, which is one of the best emo albums in recent memory. It feels impossible that a band could release this as their debut album. Origami Angel is so adept at everything they do, it shouldn't be possible. Take a listen to "666 Flags" and tell me that outro doesn't make you just scratch your head and wonder what the hell you just heard. Maybe I'm easily impressed or need to listen to more mathy music, but the way that this band makes their incredibly technical playing feel so explosive and enjoyable is mind-boggling to me. This isn't even mentioning that these songs are otherworldly catchy and all have huge emotional payoffs in their giant breakdowns. Between the EP and the album, it looks like Origami Angel could literally be the best band in the world at whatever type of song they wanted to write, whether it is mathy emo, pop punk, or whatever insane hip-hop/dance/hardcore/screamo thing is going on during "XD Gale of Darkness". I would like to see the band slow their pace every once in a while, to see how they handle the odd ballad or two, but for now I can't complain about them making music that makes me feel the same energy that got me into punk music in the first place. 

LISTEN TO: "Ruby" "Sapphire" "XD Gale of Darkness" + "666 Flags" "Doctor Whomst" "The Title Track" 

11.

Morbid Stuff - PUP 

Rise

It's pretty funny to me that one of my all-time favorite pure punk bands made their best album by going pop. PUP has been losing their youthful aggression ever since their first album, but have continued to put out the best music of their career by stepping up their hook game each time. Morbid Stuff represents the peak of that process, where PUP has gotten almost mature and fully poppy (for pop-punk). They can still throw down with the best of them (good lord just listen to "Full Blown Meltdown") but for the most part, they focus on maximizing the return on those sweet, sweet hooks. Fortunately, the album isn't just an achievement for how much time it has spent stuck in my head. This is also the strongest PUP album lyrically by a pretty wide margin. That isn't to say their early stuff wasn't well written, but Morbid Stuff feels like frontman Stefan Babcock has done some serious introspection. "Morbid Stuff" and "Scorpion Hill" are particularly devastating, but there are little quips and gems throughout the album, like the brilliant grocery store scenario in "Free At Last". The album deals with themes of aging, identity, and mental illness in a way that is extremely self-aware and nuanced. In particular, the band brings up a great discussion about the complications of profiting off their own sadness and the complexity of making a living from writing sad music while trying to better their mental health. Instrumentally, this is the most straightforward PUP record, but the band isn't exactly writing commercial jingles here. There is a lot happening rhythmically in these songs, like in all PUP songs, and the instrumentals are much more than just background for the vocals. I think the change PUP has undergone is nicely summarized by Morbid Stuff's album art. This is the first time PUP has gone with a bright color on their album art aside from the flaming part of the couch on The Dream is Over, which doesn't count here. The bright colors contrasted with the "morbid" (nailed it) design really fit the sound of the album nicely. It's punk, but in a way, the whole thing sounds very pink (if that's not pink, somebody tell me, I'm awful at colors).

LISTEN TO: 'Free At Last" "See You at Your Funeral" "Sibling Rivalry"

10.

Forever Turned Around - Whitney

Secretly Canadian

Whitney's music perfectly conjures two separate fictional scenarios in my brain. The first one is waking up in a dark room, hungry and with a headache. You stagger out of bed, briefly and miserably shiver in a shower that won't get warm, and then walk out the front door without eating breakfast, only to discover that it's the most beautiful sunny day you've ever seen. You inhale the crisp morning air and let it fill your lungs, but you don't get cold because of the gentle sunlight. The other is after a long day of work. It's winter, and you have been waiting all day to go home. You finally walk in through the front door and your significant other is there, smiling with joy that you finally made it. You cook dinner together and then decide to use the fireplace for the first time since moving in. You settle down on the couch with a drink, sit beside your partner, and close your eyes as the heat from the fire surrounds you like a blanket. Basically, what I'm saying is that Whitney's music, to me, is the sound of reminding yourself to relax after something stressful. Forever Turned Around does not have the individual standout songs of the band's debut record Light Upon the Lake, which is one of my all-time favorite albums, but in the process develops a much more enveloping atmosphere across its run time. Helping this is that the band actually moved to a lower fidelity recording method, causing their songs to gain a wonderful sense of warmth and honesty. The warmth is complemented by the band's sound on the album, which has traded much of the rock edge of their debut for a softer and gentler feel. These songs are still undoubtedly the band's self-described "country soul" sound, but they take much more influence from soft rock and folk music than the band has in the past. It's a gorgeous mixture, and definitely one of the best of the year.

LISTEN TO: "Giving Up" "Valleys (My Love)" "Forever Turned Around"

9.

   

U.F.O.F / Two Hands - Big Thief

4AD

Somebody explain to me how it's possible for a band to release two records at this level in one year. Even more impressive is that the albums are sonic opposites. U.F.O.F is so dreamy, so delicate sounding that pressing play might delete the album from your phone, while Two Hands is a visceral, Neil Young and Crazy Horse-esque rock catharsis session. They both perfectly exemplify how utterly untouchable Big Thief has been this year. Big Thief has always been a band that gets great press, but 2019 was another level. It felt like everybody in music has been sitting around waiting to be blown away by Big Thief in every way, from the band's stunning live shows to their impeccable records. To everybody's (and nobody's) surprise, they did it twice. Big Thief has often been thrown under the "folk-rock" label, despite constantly pushing the boundaries of both genres, and each of their 2019 albums seems to perfect one side of that term. U.F.O.F shows the band's "folk" side, filled with songs so precious and unfamiliar that it almost belies their enormity. Two Hands is pure rock, all crunchy guitars and cracking voices for 40 exhilarating minutes. U.F.O.F has its moments of heaviness, like on the shoegaze-y "Jenni" and Two Hands has moments of careful folk like "Cut My Hair" but neither album has moments that sound like one another. When U.F.O.F gets mean, it feels more implied than concrete. When Two Hands gets quiet, it doesn't feel dreamlike, but rather minimalist and raw. The band is incredibly cohesive in different ways on each album, and at times their playing feels more like one unit than multiple separate instruments. The songs are so alien that they don't bring to mind images of humans playing instruments but rather sounds that have always existed in that order and always will exist like that. I think it goes without saying that both albums some of the best lyrical works in music, which is something approximately 100% of people would have put money on before their release. In a year of many double releases, Big Thief stands out from all of them, all the while setting themselves up to be the leaders of folk-rock in the new decade.

LISTEN TO: "UFOF" "Cattails" "Orange" + "Forgotten Eyes" "Not" "Cut My Hair"

8.

   

Tell All Your Friend / Curio Cabinet I - Okey Dokey 

Okey Dokey Unlimited

Outside of my #1 album, I don't think I spent as much time with any other album stuck in my head this year as Tell All Your Friend and the songs from Curio Cabinet I. I've done a lot of talking about "hooks" on this list, and that's because I'm a sucker for music that doesn't sound like crap. I like pop music, I like catchy melodies, and I love these albums. No wheels are being reinvented here, nothing on this album will sound foreign to anybody with a working knowledge of pop and soul music. Tell All Your Friend and Curio Cabinet I are just phenomenal indie-pop albums, full of superb melodies, psych soul instrumentals, and genuinely funny songs. I think part of what makes these albums so enjoyable is the way that they use the pop stylings of the '50s and '60s as an influence. Songs like "Hometown", "Cut Me Off", and the Nilsson flavored "Wag Your Tail" especially sound like gems of the vocal pop and soul era written for 2019. This gives the songs a timeless feel without making them overly familiar, like they were translated into 2019 stylings rather than a 2019 band looking back to the 1950s for something fresh to mine. Both of these albums were released song by song and then compiled, and that feels like a good way to view them. They are collections of singles rather than albums with good songs and bad songs. This explains the remarkably high batting average here, as both albums sound like every song was meant to be the star of the record, especially on Curio Cabinet I, where every song benefits hugely being a collaboration, as they each feel even more distinct and memorable than usual. That shouldn't imply that the songs on Tell All Your Friend feel like the blur together, because they are also distinct works that live and breathe on their own. Okey Dokey is one of the finest pop bands in music today, making ear candy that perfectly mixes dashes of pop, soul, indie, psychedelic, and rock n' roll into a concoction that transcends influence and reaches pure pop bliss.

LISTEN TO: "Whose Heart" "Hometown" "Cut Me Off" + "Feels Good" "What Do I Got Left (feat. Arlie)" "Wag Your Tail (feat. Welles)"

7.

1000 Gecs - 100 Gecs

Dog Show

1000 Gecs is enjoyable in the same way that gritting your teeth is relieving. It kinda hurts, you probably shouldn't like it, and you can't stop. The album sounds like if you took every popular and obscure music style from 2000 until now and threw them in a blender and mixed them with a handful of Adderall. The result is exhilarating and more than a little bit concerning. Your opinion of the album should be pretty much decided 1:51 into the opening track "745 sticky". If you hear the huge, stupid bro-step outro and immediately feel 90 years old, just turn the album off. I promise there's nothing there for you. On the other hand, if you hear it and enjoy the stupid cheesiness you're in for a treat. The whole album is that ridiculous. "800db cloud" is the highlight to me, and one of the most incredible things I've heard all year. I have no idea how they threw together dubstep, pop, and SoundCloud rap like that but I wake up every day and wish I had ever done anything as cool as writing "I might go and throw my phone into the lake, yeah" followed by a laughably noisy hip-hop beat and an assortment of random growls. 1000 Gecs feels like the (il)logical conclusion of the PC Music sound, the end result of the abrasively maximalist pop that label managed to sneak into the mainstream earlier this decade. It feels tempting to write off this album's ridiculousness as ironic, like something so ridiculous just had to be created with a knowing sneer, but the album is shockingly true in its love of the genres it blows up to hilarious proportions. 1000 Gecs is about wholeheartedly loving the un-self-conscious thread that runs through chiptune, pop-punk, dubstep, metal, 2000s pop, and noise music. Reading the album's lyrics on paper makes them feel like a joking emulation of the overly sincere music of the 2000s, but when they're heard in action they are more like a repurposing of that emotion. It's like "what if those overblown emotions were a realistic depiction of how I feel" instead of "what if we copied those overblown emotions just to have another point of reference for our music?". 1000 Gecs is one of the most addictive albums of the year, a supersized masterpiece that perfectly balances its abrasive tendencies with earworm hooks and a hell of a lot of energy.

LISTEN TO: "745 sticky" "800db cloud" "ringtone"

6.

You Deserve Love - White Reaper

Elektra

Most alternative history focuses on stupid stuff like "What if the Nazis won World War II?' and "What if the Soviet Union won the space race?" and other things that can simply be answered with, "it doesn't matter." For their last two albums, White Reaper has been imagining an alternative history of their own. They've been asking, "what if, instead of being treated as embarrassing relics of the past, bands like Grand Funk Railroad, Cheap Trick, and Thin Lizzy were the greatest bands of all time?". They make a pretty convincing argument. You Deserve Love is easily the most fun rock album of the year and the best album of White Reaper's career. For their third album, the band moves away from the surf-punk of their debut and the Camaro-ready, 80's highschool bully riffs of their sophomore album and into the pop side of things. You Deserve Love is a cover to cover showcase of 10 of the most infectious rock n' roll songs in modern music. Every second of every song sounds like it was programmed to be as perfectly sweet to the human ear as possible. This isn't to say White Reaper has lost their bite - songs like "Hard Luck" and "Raw" do more than enough to prove that White Reaper can translate this newfound pop perfection into a heavier format. Yet, the album shines when the band is going down roads that they have never previously transversed. The dubby bounce of "Saturday" is the musical equivalent of eating peach rings, "Might Be Right" is a masterclass in hook writing, and the closer "You Deserve Love" is like if a top tier Hall and Oates song was performed by garage punk artist tasked with writing a commercial jingle. Some fans will undoubtedly try to write off the album as too poppy, but they're all missing the point. White Reaper has already done their take on fast, they've already done their take on heavy. You Deserve Love is their take on shimmery, shining pop-rock and wow do they deliver.

LISTEN TO: "Saturday" "Might Be Right" "You Deserve Love"

5.

thank u, next - Ariana Grande

Republic

The only thing harder than being Ariana Grande has to be dating her. Huxley wrote that suffering makes great art, which we all sort of know is largely crap, but a broken clock something something twice a day. Ariana Grande has suffered enough to create two masterpieces, and look at that! She did it. 2018's Sweetener was one of my favorite records of the year, and thank u, next is an improvement over that record on every level. Sweetener felt like the first cohesive album of Grande's career, the first time she had released a record that did not feel like it had any deliberate filler in it. Yet part of me felt, in that process, the songs had lost a lot of the star power that made her pop hits so great. The songs were great, the overall best of her career, but they were mostly missing that "it" factor. The album sounded like a collection of great songs, not a collection of hits. thank u, next is a collection of hits. Non-singles like "NASA" and fake smile" have every bit as much charm as the title track and "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored". Any song here could have been the biggest on the album (except "bloodline", that song is really bad). thank u, next is the culmination of Grande's transition from a star to a superstar, a cult of personality rather than just a voice on the radio. Her albums are now a showcase for her songs as well as her life. She isn't making songs for radio, she is making songs about herself that get played on the radio. It's rare for people to know the absolute worst contexts influencing a celebrity's art, but thanks to the disgusting amount of media scrutiny she has received in the last two years the public is fully aware of what is driving Grande's art. It's a strange feeling to celebrate a star's newfound openness in her music when that openness was forced upon her a thousandfold by the media, but this circus has not deterred Ariana Grande in the slightest. She is making the best albums of her career, and the best pop music of anybody in music today.

LISTEN TO: "NASA" "fake smile" "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored"

4.

MJ Lenderman - MJ Lenderman

Sub-Fi

MJ Lenderman's debut album sounds like it was recorded by ghosts. Really really talented ghosts. Everything about the album is haunting, like a lost recording from the past that has come to light just for you. Their blend of country, indie rock, slowcore, and jazz influences is like hearing a transmission from an abandoned shack in the rural South where a band plays all day and all night but nobody lives close enough to ever hear them. They play the music you've been wanting to hear your whole life, but nobody knows how to get to that little shed. MJ Lenderman's debut album is like a recording of their best material. From start to finish, this album is a marvel of modern country, an emotional ride through life where friends and family come and go, lovers leave without warning, and there's always something greater to yearn for. Frontman Jake Lenderman's voice is a perfect middle ground between country and indie, with an accent that makes his voice sound like boiling honey. There is something so raw yet friendly about it. His lyrics are starkly minimalist, almost chilling in the power they deliver in so few words. Verses like "I will wait / until this passes over me / until my love lets go of me" are brutal in their efficiency, largely aided by the explosive rise and fall of many of these songs. The instrumentals crash and release like waves hitting a shore, and they can go from a whisper to a fit of noise multiple times during their extended runtimes. The production is reverb-heavy and low fidelity, with a weird mix that makes the Lenderman's voice sound like you you're hearing it from the other room, but it's also right behind you at the same time. It's an incredible sound, and it conveys a feeling of wistful melancholy like no other album this year. MJ Lenderman is carrying the troubadour tradition of artists like Jason Molina into the new decade, and I can't wait to see where they go next.

LISTEN TO: "Come Over" "My Baby Says" "Southern Birds"

3.

Bandana - Freddie Gibbs and Madlib

ESGN / Keep Cool / Madlib Invasion / RCA

On a list of things and people I would least like to make angry, I would put Freddie Gibbs somewhere between a fully armored M1 Abrams tank and God. Making the case for Freddie Gibbs as the best rapper in the world right now isn't even a hot take, it's nearly a fact. Freddie Gibbs has been ice-cold his entire career, but Bandana is a different level entirely. The duo's first collaboration took everybody by surprise, largely because nobody expected it to work, but it felt slightly limited by that notion as well. Everybody was shocked that a (for the time being) straightforward but extremely skilled gangster rapper could make an album with one of the most lauded underground producers in hip-hop, and while it worked out extraordinarily, there was something that indicated that both parties were slightly unsure of how to handle things as a unit. Madlib did his thing, Gibbs did his own, and it just so happened that those agendas overlapped. Bandana is a different agenda entirely. Here, rapper and producer are a singular force. These songs sound like a duet between Gibbs' ruthlessly technical rapping and Madlib's beats, like a call and response between the two parties. The beats feel less like the guiding train tracks they were on Pinata and more like Madlib spinning Freddie in a circle and then pulling a blindfold off his eyes. Madlib just points in a direction and Freddie Gibbs destroys until Madlib switches things entirely again. The production is immaculate and constantly perfect whether it's acting terminally smooth ("Crime Pays"), darkly disorienting ("Half Manne Half Cocaine"), or almost straightforward ("Giannis"). As I've mentioned earlier, Gibbs' rapping is beyond formidable. It's force of nature stuff. I swear the man doesn't even breathe, he just gets into his groove and goes until the song is over. His flow is perfect for every twist and turn Madlib throws him. Lyrically, his gangster stories are better than ever. Gibbs has such a satisfying way of describing violence, hearing his words are like watching an action movie at times. When he gets personal about family, love, and friends, it is absolutely heartbreaking even though all those memories seem to be bloodstained. Bandana is a stunning show of power from two of the most underrated hip-hop icons of our time, a prime example of a sequel that takes the brilliance of the original and makes it look like child's play.

LISTEN TO: "Crime Pays" "Fake Names" "Practice"

2.

Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains

Drag City

I got into David Berman's music too late in my life. I had always been told I would enjoy it, but never gave it a shot until Purple Mountains was released. I was blown away immediately. Berman's mix of classic rock informed indie, country, and poetic lyrics was something that resonated with me. His booming baritone and incredible sense of miserable humor were everything I wanted to hear. And then I read a transcript of Fader's interview with Berman, titled "Dying in the Al Gore Suite". It told the story of Berman intentionally overdosing on 300 Xanax and crack cocaine and then forcing the Loews Vanderbilt in Nashville to give him the room that Al Gore himself had famously stayed in. He survived the suicide attempt, thankfully, but the story reminded me of the seriousness of Berman's work. His humor often disguised it, but these songs about misery were no joke. Purple Mountains nevertheless took over my listening habits. It played whenever I drove, when I walked around campus, and while I studied. I was obsessed, and then David Berman was dead at age 52. It was like getting punched in the stomach. Purple Mountains is the last album Berman released in his lifetime, after over a decade long hiatus. It's a masterpiece on the level of American Water, to say the least, an absolute triumph of a record. Yet, the album was clouded with tragedy even before his death. Berman wrote the album to deal with the death of his mother, the stagnation of retirement, his treatment-resistant depression, his separation from his wife of over 20 years, and in an effort to make enough money to pay off the over $100k in debt he had accrued. All of this hangs over the album like a fog, an unrelenting heaviness that fills every song here. It's entirely possible to stick your head in the sand and enjoy Purple Mountains for what it is: a beautifully written, wryly funny, and surprisingly catchy rock album from one of the greatest songwriters in music history. It's also possible to hear it like Phil Elverum's A Crow Looked At Me, a work of art so powerful and shrouded in crushing sadness that listening to it for any entertainment is a cruel injustice to the context of the album. I personally don't think either approach is correct. To me, the album is a celebration of Berman's brilliance, a morose work that fights against its nature with humor and beauty. The album is overwhelmingly sad, and has the worldview of a man who has been kicked and betrayed by the universe at every opportunity. But the point isn't to suggest that life is a cruel joke - that's self-evident. Purple Mountains simply claims it's one worth laughing at.

LISTEN TO: "That's Just the Way That I Feel" "Snow is Falling in Manhattan" "Nights That Won't Happen" 

1.

Cosmic Thrill Seekers - Prince Daddy and The Hyena

Counter Intuitive Records

Prince Daddy and The Hyena's second album is a feat of ambition that deserves to be ranked amongst the most forward-thinking punk albums of our time, like WORRY., The Monitor, The Black Parade, Home, Like No Place Is There, Joy as an Act of Resistance, and Attack on Memory (although I like Here and Nowhere Else slightly better). Cosmic Thrill Seekers has gotten a million comparisons to most of these albums over the course of this year, not for its sound but for the artistic statement it so brilliantly pulls off. CTS is a monument, a monolithic representation of what happens when passion matches execution. It makes the band's previous work look tame in comparison, like a band going from figuring out how to walk to running full speed at an unmatched pace. There's a lot contributing to the band's unbelievable evolution from a top tier punk band to the best band in the world. For one, the band is playing at the top of their game in terms of technical ability. Prince Daddy has always had trouble finding a consistent drummer, and the addition of Pictures of Vernon drummer/singer Daniel Gorham is the best addition to a punk group since Cloud Nothings picked up Jayson Gerycz. His drumming on this album is, frankly, apeshit. On most of the songs here he is the driving instrumental force, a whirlwind player that intuitively knows when to play fast and busy and when to play simple and heavy to match Kory's unmatched songwriting. Zakariya Houacine's bass is the perfect compliment to Gorham's drumming, and their playing ranges from thunderous sludge to nimble fretwork whenever necessary. The bass here is a huge part of the album's formidable low end, which adds the crushing heft that carries many of the tracks on CTS. Kory Gregory and Cam Handford's dueling guitars generate the explosiveness that makes songs like "Klonopin" and "Ursula Merger" such powerhouses. Cam's leads are a perfect blend between melodic and shred, giving many passages their devil-horns in the air energy. Kory's vocals are even more throat-tearing as ever, making him sound like a punk-rock Tom Waits at times. They might be an acquired taste for some, but the band's sound would not be nearly as electrifying without his gravelly howl. The band is better than ever on a technical level, certainly, but the main difference-maker here is ambition. Every song on CTS is like its own opera. The three Abbey Road-esque medleys that comprise the album are a huge artistic feat, from the way they run perfectly together to the difficulty of writing blocks of songs with such a cohesive sound and theme in regard to both the songs they share the medley with and the overall Wizard of Oz theme of the album. Kory's songwriting is as widescreen as punk music gets, and the album's production is stunning. Cosmic Thrill Seekers is the sound of a band with unparalleled vision and the talent to pull it off. If I had to pick one song to perfectly encapsulate the band, I would choose the album's closer, "Wacky Misadventures of the Passenger". It shows the band in prime form, perfectly exemplifying everything that makes them so wonderful. The song has an entire EP worth of ideas crammed into it, and every one of them feels fully realized. The beginning is thrashy and dynamic, the middle is a blinding display of the band's skill, and then the second half starts. If the first half of the song feels like the power of a rocket ship leaving earth and entering orbit, the second half is the equivalent of it blowing up the moon in slow motion. The band fires on all cylinders to create the most emotional two-and-a-half minutes of music released in 2019. Nobody is the star of the album here. It's the sound of a group of individuals coming together in heavenly unison, to end the best album of the year at its highest moment. It is breathtaking in every sense of the word.

LISTEN TO: "Lauren (Track 2)" "Ursula Merger" "Wacky Misadventures of the Passenger"


Well, that's the end of the list. If you read this far, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is a lot of text, and I'm flattered that you even bothered to click the link to this list. A huge thank you goes to my girlfriend Christin for editing this whole thing. Please read her latest story here, it is a genuinely incredible work and one of the most powerful things I have ever read. As always if you enjoyed it or think somebody you know would, you are more than welcome (encouraged, even) to send this list to them. I hope you enjoyed what you read and that it inspired you to try out so new music. Remember to support the artists you enjoy, share music with the people close to you, and to tell the people you care about that you love them.

Thank you. 

Ian Brower