Category / Albums

by sweensryche

The Top 20 Albums of 2022


So here we are at the end of another installment of the ’20s, and it’s tough to see the silver linings at the moment. 100 years ago, things were “roaring,” and we could use that same adjective now, just to describe forest fires and hate rallies and Kanye West interviews that are also hate rallies. But certain things will still always be good. Unexpected phone calls from old friends. Even more unexpected mid-term election victories for non-fascists. And music. Music has always been magic, but even more so today. Harmonious transmissions from around the world are available to us with a tap of the finger, on something we carry around in our pockets. So yeah, I am hopeful at the end of the day. I believe there are more good people out there than bad. These 20 albums helped me hold onto that feeling this year, along with the movie Paddington 2. If you haven’t seen Paddington 2, close this stupid tab and watch it now! Happy holidays everyone!

20. Charlotte Adigéry & Boris Pupul – Topical Dancer

The campaign of Pennsylvania senator-elect John Fetterman is rightfully getting credit for using humor to expose its opponent as a clueless, depraved joke. Serious attacks have their place, but it’s tough to recover from a sick burn. On Topical Dancer, the Belgian electronic duo Charlotte Adigéry & Boris Pupul use acidic wit and unapologetic dance grooves to address racism, rape culture, xenophobia, and cyberbullying. The reality of these worse-than-ever global problems cuts deeper in this context than it does on the news, as these talented people of color use bass, drums and synths to turn “laugh to keep from crying” into a disco mantra. “Don’t say ‘I’m allowed to say that because I grew up in a black neighborhood’ / Say ‘my n…eighbor,'” advises Charlotte Adigéry on “Esperanto,” a hilarious instruction manual for the privileged that starts Topical Dancer like a gauntlet thrown. The sunny melody of “Blenda” clashes unforgettably with its chorus: “Go back to your country where you belong / Siri can you tell me where I belong?” And on my personal 2022 song of the summer, the less-is-more funk jam “C’eci n’est pas un cliché,” every lyric is a pop trope (e.g. “You’rе my baby tonight / I wanna hold you real tight”). It’s pop criticism, in the form of a great pop song.

19. Maha – Orkos

Apple Music is my monkey’s paw. During the mp3 mania of the early oughts, I wished for access to any song, without waiting 47 minutes for Limewire to download it on my parents’ PC. I got my wish. And now the sheer volume of music available to me is a daily reminder of how I will never come close to hearing it all. With the resurfacing of Orkos, a forgotten Egyptian pop album recorded in 1979 and only released on cassette, my existential crisis deepens – what about all the lost masterpieces out there that I will never get to hear? Maha, who cut her chops as the vocalist in Salah Ragab’s Cairo Jazz Band, faded into obscurity after Orkos went nowhere. But with her approval, the label Habibi Funk has finally given her achievement the attention it deserves. From the sprightly Latin percussion of “Orkos” to the candlelit Bond-theme energy of “Kabl Ma Nessallem We Nemshy,” this is an artisanal melting pot of discotheque-ready grooves and gorgeous orchestral flourishes. Maha’s captivating, nightclub-Nico voice is the throughline. It’s all so mesmerizing, it keeps me from worrying about what I’m missing and appreciating what I was lucky enough to find.

18. Bartees Strange – Farm to Table

“There’s reasons for heavy hearts.” This is the first lyric we hear on Farm to Table, the second LP from Oklahoma indie rocker Bartees Strange. It’s the perfect introduction to a record full of big confessions and bigger crescendos. In interviews, Strange talked about how rising to fame at the outset of the pandemic made him feel guilty, and I believe him. Because these song structures act as mirrors of his conflicted feelings, despairing deeply before jumping for joy. As Strange takes us through the reasons his particular heart is heavy – survivor guilt, climate change, the perils of fame, turning into your parents – he buoys each emotion with a pitch-perfect production choice. “Wretched” begins with a sea of ghostly synths, as he sings “Day light doesn’t seem to come up as fast / When it’s you I’m haunting.” Then come the guitar chords, with the more urgent “I can’t be here lost and abandoned.” When the full band finally roars to life, it knocks Strange out of his rut, giving us a mantra for our toughest days: “Sometimes it’s hard but you know I’m thankful.”

17. Yeule – Glitch Princess

In a recent column about mass shootings, New York Times right-wing jellyfish Bret Stephens said this: “I know the research hasn’t proved this, but I suspect violent video games also have a lot to do with both socially isolating and numbing the minds of troubled teenage boys.” He’s right about the first part – the American Psychological Association has found no such evidence. I’m guessing Stephens might not be a fan of Yeule, an experimental electropop artist who took her name from a Final Fantasy character and sings about the nuances of depression from the safe space of her avatar. “You’re the only one who knows me / I can’t tell anyone,” the Singaporean confides from underneath a blanket of synthesizers on her second LP. Her lyrics are full of scars and demons, bites and bruises, suicidal ideations. Yet Glitch Princess isn’t a depressing listen. It’s an act of therapy buoyed by an avant-garde musical spirit, finding just the right synth patch for every wound, culminating in an act of psychological generosity – a four-hour ambient experience that places us deep in the stress-evaporating embrace of technological art.

16. SpiritWorld – Deathwestern

For those of us who shrink at the prospect of confrontation, heavy metal can be ideal fantasy fuel – you can sit in the center of its chaotic swirl and act out what you would have said to that kid in high school who told everyone you had dandruff when you had BO, not dandruff. (Fuck you Scott, you can’t even bully right!) Undoubtedly, the second LP from the Las Vegas thrash machine SpiritWorld provides this service. It’s a half-hour of relentless riffage and locked-in grooves, heavily indebted to vintage Slayer and therefore absolute catnip for me. But it also takes advantage of another benefit of the genre – a high tolerance for weird-ass concepts. Deathwestern is bandleader Stu Folsom’s concept album about the anti-Christ arriving in the Old West, complete with an Ennio Morricone-style intro and some instantly iconic bad-trip album art that lets you know exactly what you’re in for. “I could’ve swore I saw the devil on a sawdust floor / In a honky-tonk in North Texas,” Folsom screams. “But maybe it was just the booze / Or maybe all the mescaline.” The way the guitars chug and the drums swing, I can’t help but believe him.

15. Bear McCreary – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

The Rings of Power, Amazon’s billion-dollar franchise gambit, was one of the best TV shows of 2022. Leaning heavy into themes that attract fans of all ages to J.R.R. Tolkien’s work – small folk doing great deeds; races uniting to face a common enemy; the unshakeable power of friendship – the show is the bright, hopeful, majestic anecdote to the hard-R nihilism of Game of Thrones. And some of the credit has to go to composer Bear McCreary. Somehow, his dynamic, anthemic score manages to pay homage to original Lord of the Rings film composer Howard Shore (who contributes the show’s main title theme), while never making it feel like we’re treading familiar ground. Each character and location comes to life with its own indelible melody, like a favorable wind from the West that clears our path to understanding. The mournful-but-determined French horns of “Galadriel,” puckish cellos of “Durin IV” and banner-waving theatrics of “Numenor” add profound tone and shading to the viewing experience, and transport us right back to this vision of Middle Earth on repeated listens. Turns out Tolkien’s world isn’t the only one where magic is real.

14. Kendrick Lamar – Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

“I’ve been going through something. Watch out.” If you were expecting Kendrick Lamar’s fifth LP to be another collection of trunk-rattling bangers, the Compton rapper wastes no time setting you straight. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is a double-album in both structure and ambition, 18 tracks that detail the Pulitzer-winner’s recent journey through psychoanalysis with little regard for what’s gonna sound good at the barbecue. It’s both thrilling and a bit uncomfortable to realize how little Lamar is holding back, whether he’s dragging the phrase “daddy issues” out of its misogynistic ditch, staging a vicious domestic argument, or honoring his trans aunt while also re-enacting the casual homophobia of his former self. The production choices are quieter, and that helps. Drums take a back seat to subdued pianos and organs, which act as beta blockers, evening out the raw intensity of Lamar’s incredibly focused performance. His problems aren’t universal – when he says “you can’t please everybody,” he’s talking about making art that the whole world is waiting for. But by baring his soul like this in the face of immense pressure to stay on top, he’s modeling what our own priorities should be.

13. The Smile – A Light for Attracting Attention

It wasn’t always clear how Radiohead would handle aging. It’s healthy to have a sense of one’s own mortality, but these guys have always been obsessed with the pointlessness of it all. “Cracked eggs / Dead birds / Scream as they fight for life,” sang a 26-year-old Thom Yorke on the final track of the disillusioned masterpiece The Bends. 27 years later, this side project from Yorke, guitarist Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner has an outlook that’s just as bleak, but it’s informed by something different. A Light for Attracting Attention delivers what we’d hope from a late Radiohead record – Yorke’s voice beckoning like an alien siren, post-punk grooves elevated by odd time signatures, waves of melody soothing us out of nowhere like a radio broadcast from a happier time. But there are some elements that are purely The Smile, too – most prominently Skinner’s drum solo that kicks off “The Opposite,” which sounds like the beginning of a sweaty funk workout from The Meters. For an album that’s not interested in being catchy, this rhythmic pulse from a live drummer is critical, helping us understand that even nihilism can have a rhythm. “When we realize we are broke and nothing mends / We can drop under the surface,” the 53-year-old Yorke observes on the closing “Skrting On the Surface.” It’s not an argument for suicide, but acceptance. The older we get, the thinner the ice. What’s wrong with picking out our wetsuit?

12. Hurray for the Riff Raff – Life on Earth

Nobody wants to stare disaster in the face. But those who must can gain a kind of superpower – the clarity of sadness. And on their devastating eighth album, New Orleans singer/songwriter Alynda Segarra (who fronts a rotating group of bandmembers as Hurray for the Riff Raff) uses that clarity as the engine of great art. Life on Earth is as serious as its title would suggest, putting listeners in the shoes of narrators who have been abandoned, assaulted, disbelieved, punished for crossing an imaginary line that we call a border. Yet Segarra is skillful and empathetic enough to find the eyes of her characters’ hurricanes, and it’s from there that we receive this transmission of stirring neo-folk songs. The arrangements are sparse but feel panoramic, Segarra’s guitar and vocals filling our speakers fully, the occasional drum machine only adding to the authentic sense of being one person in a massive world. When a new element is introduced, like the gorgeous second-line horn arrangement on the title track, it’s like welcoming a new friend inside, who knows everything that’s happened. “I just wanna be free / Get over it in time / Push it out of my mind,” Segarra sings. That may be harder than it sounds, even impossible. But when we can say what we want out loud with such clarity? That’s called hope.

11. Chat Pile – God’s Country

It’s always a risk to write lyrics that state things plainly. John Lennon’s “Imagine” continues to be a go-to whipping boy for its simple, supposedly naïve sentiments about peace, love and religion. So when Raygun Busch, lead singer of Oklahoma City noise-rock band Chat Pile, takes on the plight of the unhoused by screaming “WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO LIVE OUTSIDE?!?!?” – its gutsy directness lands like a wrecking ball to HUD headquarters. Somehow, this very, very loud quartet keeps up this level of focused, visceral outrage for the entirety of its debut LP. Its choice of subject matter warrants nothing less. Mass murder. Industrial accidents. Drug addiction. And if you take this journey through the shadow of death, the band has a special treat waiting for you – a 9-minute tragicomic epic about seeing a vision of the McDonaldland character Grimace smoking weed in your bedroom during a mental breakdown. (Now there’s a sentence I never expected to write.) The true magic of God’s Country is that you can choose what kind of fire you want in your belly. Is it the righteous fury of the lyrics? Or the sweaty, borderline-unhinged adrenaline of the music? Or if you’ve eaten your Wheaties that day, you can try to experience the whole damn thing – the muck and the thrill of life in one inflammable cocktail.

10. Rina Sawayama ­– Hold the Girl

Pop music’s connection to commerce will always render it suspicious to some music fans. But crafting hooks and rhythms that resonate with a massive audience is really fricking hard. And if you happen to have that rare ability, pop’s blurry genre boundaries grant you a little creative wiggle room, which is sometimes enough to make hits without compromises. If my poptimism sounds far-fetched, check out Hold the Girl, the chameleonic second LP from Japanese-British pop singer Rina Sawayama. Clearly a student of 21st-century divas (Gaga, Kesha, Pink and Rated R-era Rihanna have all shaped her sound), Sawayama knows her way around the anthemic dance-pop grooves of today. But she’s just as clearly a child of the ‘90s, dabbling in Pablo Honey-drenched alt-rock (“Forgiveness”) and Nine Inch Nails-indebted industrial melodrama (“Your Age”). Then there’s “Send My Best to John,” a lovely, gut-wrenching folk song told from the perspective of an immigrant mother struggling with her son’s coming out. “We both had to leave our mothers to get the things we want,” Sawayama sings, empathizing with everyone involved while also inspiring us to reach for our lighters and raise them up high.

9. Flo Milli – You Still Here, Ho?

It seemed unlikely that the 2000s “dating show” Flavor of Love would contribute anything of lasting value. Yet out of its ashes rose Tiffany Pollard (aka “New York,” because the show treated women like dogs for its host to name). Confident, hilarious, and loyal to her mother, Pollard went on to be the star of her own reality TV universe. She was a better hypeman than Flava Flav could ever be. So when Pollard shows up on Alabama rapper Flo Milli’s debut LP, it bodes well. “Princess of this rap shit / Get in line peasants,” Pollard boasts about this star in the making. It’s not hyperbole. A viciously clever lyricist who has a god-given ability to turn lines into hooks, Flo Milli is our poet laureate of why she’s the shit and you suck. You Still Here, Ho? delivers on the casual disdain of its title, filled with imaginative ways to mock her haters. But the tracks where Milli is focused on her own awesomeness are even better. On the gargantuan banger “Big Steppa,” she tells us how expensive her shoes are while also warning us that we’re about to get trampled: “Christians on, dancin’ with the devil / Red hot lips no pepper / I’m a big stepper.” And on “F.N.G.M.,” she extends her hype game to her successful girlfriends, inverting the misogyny of an old Lil Wayne hit over a vintage 808 groove. “Flo Milli, I love you princess,” shares Pollard on the outro. A talented woman beating a rigged game couldn’t ask for a better mentor.

8. Sudan Archives – Natural Brown Prom Queen

I think the last time I was really, truly homesick was my first few weeks as a college freshman, ping-ponging between knowing I was doing “the right thing,” and wondering how the right thing could feel so lonely. During the pandemic, singer/songwriter/violinist Brittney Parks started to get that queasy feeling, longing for her hometown of Cincinnati from her career homebase of Los Angeles. Unlike me, she didn’t just cry into her pillow. She made a sprawling concept album that wrestles with these emotions while twisting the R&B genre into whatever shape she feels like. Natural Brown Prom Queen, her second release as Sudan Archives, tells the story of a thinly veiled Parks stand-in called “Britt.” She goes from overcompensating for a man who doesn’t deserve it (“Homemaker”) to making puffed-chest threats to a two-faced friend (“Ciara”) to exploring the emotional minefield that a Black woman has to navigate when she changes her hair (“Selfish Soul”). All while weaving in odes to people and places from back home, including pep-talk voicemails from her mother. The music is as restless as a frustrated expat, shifting from rap to funk to quiet storm to neo-soul, sometimes within the same track. “I just miss my homie T.K. / I just miss my Mama Shay Shay / Homesick,” she sings, leaving no doubt whatsoever where her heart is.

7. Orville Peck – Bronco

I had many issues with director Baz Luhrmann’s ice cream headache of an Elvis Presley biopic. A big one being the filmmaker’s debilitating obsession with his subject’s sex appeal, making it all about how he looked versus how he sounded or what he thought. If Elvis had been blessed with the sartorial and marketing instincts of Orville Peck – a country singer and LGBTQ+ icon who hides his face behind a menagerie of bespoke fringe masks – Luhrmann wouldn’t have known where to point the camera. On his second LP, Bronco, the Johannesburg native uses his ravishing voice to show us all kinds of ways that a human personality can be alluring. “Call me up anytime / Come on baby, cry,” Peck sings to another man, placing vulnerability and masculinity together in a way that still feels rare. “The Curse of the Blackened Eye” puts us in the shoes of a domestic violence victim struggling to move on. “Hexie Mountains” depicts a losing battle with grief, which is every battle with grief. Elvis was a master at elevating lyrics in this way, making us believe he’s caught in a trap with the quaver in his voice alone. Peck is a worthy acolyte and then some. If there’s ever a movie about him, I pray it digs way deeper than Luhrmann’s film, making me feel the way this music does – uplifted, accepted, and alive.

6. Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento – Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento

When I first heard this magnificent Columbian salsa LP, I took it as advertised – a collaboration between two groups. One must be a duo of talented siblings (Meridian Brothers), the other a collective looking to bring back the glory days of the Bogota scene (El Grupo Renacimiento, or “The Renaissance Group”). None of this is true. The Meridian Brothers aren’t real. El Grupo Renacimiento isn’t real. They sprung from the imagination of one dude – Eblis Álvarez, who has been releasing faux collaborations like this since 2005. This time around, Álvarez uses his “Meridian Brothers” moniker to revisit the sounds of 1970s “salsa dura,” a jammier take on the genre. He invented a vintage salsa dura band, El Grupo Renacimiento, gave them an entire backstory, and told it via a gorgeously animated mockumentary. And then he made an album that made me believe. How is this the work of one musician? The complex interplay between the pianos and guitars, the riptide of syncopation that drives the bass and percussion: all magic tricks. Álvarez’s eccentricities aren’t just conceptual either; these songs revel in them. Pair the off-kilter minor-key melody of “Triste son” with Álvarez’s breezy, back-of-the-throat vocals – which sound like Kermit the Frog living his best life – and you have something only one person in this world could imagine.

5. Kikagaku Moyo – Kumoyo Island

In the beginning of 2022, the Tokyo psychedelic rock band Kikagaku Moyo announced that this would be its last year together, positioning its final album and tour as a loving, appreciative farewell. “Please do not miss this chance to get your tickets, because there will be no next time,” the statement read, without an ounce of bitterness or regret. It makes sense that these guys would be so mature and clear-headed about life’s ebbs and flows; their music is meditative and optimistic, a dream world of melody and rhythm that just might get you up and dancing without you even realizing it. Kumoyo Island is the group’s name for this fifth and final LP, and it also works as a description of the elevated headspace they’ve been creating since they first gelled as a street-performing collective in the early 2010s. You can’t find Kumoyo Island on any terrestrial map. Just press play and you’ll find your way. Whether the quintet is leaning into the enchanting, undulating groove of “Dancing Blue,” soaring through the heady atmospherics of “Meu Mar,” or hitting the distortion pedals on the epic “Yayoi, Iyayoi,” the goal is always to envelop us in a sonic embrace. This one just happens to be a loving hug goodbye.

4. Leikeli47 – Shape Up

It’s one thing to shift from ego-tripping anthems to insecure confessionals when you have a bunch of musicians to shade in the nuances. But on her third album, NYC rapper Leikeli47 traverses this emotional territory like a tightrope walker, favoring minimalist production that ensures the spotlight is firmly on her, 100% of the way. She is the second artist on this list who only appears in a mask, and was doing so before the rest of us had to. There must be something to it – opening your heart to the world from a place of anonymity, a superpower that will score you points with your therapist. “I gotta look both ways when you bring up trust,” the rapper admits over a quiet, frayed soul loop, her vocals loud in the mix to drive home how firmly she’s standing in her truth. An avowed Pharrell Williams fan, Leikeli47 is drawn to skeletal, rumbling, “Drop It Like It’s Hot”-style beats, which rely on empty space as much as drums and bass. Which makes sense because when she’s really feeling herself, like on the opening track “Chitty Bang,” she’s her own orchestra: “I thought I told you lames we are not the same,” she spits over a low, droning bass note. Then there’s the magnificent feminist banger “Carry Anne,” which flips the whole idea of being “ballsy” on its head, a brief theremin loop being the only production flourish. She barely needs instruments to get the whole world nodding. Damn straight we are not the same.

3. Ashley McBryde – Lindeville

The country music machine is littered with amazing songwriters. It just seems like they rarely get the chance to do anything beyond commodifying their audience’s love of neighborhood bars and trusty old trucks. Or so I thought. Because Nashville star Ashley McBryde dropped her third LP this year, and it’s an homage to storytelling with a heart as big as an F-150. McBryde approached Lindeville like a showrunner, sequestering her and five other A-list songwriters in a Tennessee home with the goal of breathing life into a fictional town. This is why we get to feel like a fly on the wall as trailer park neighbors gossip, strip club musicians busk, and the guy who chalks the ballfield teaches us to be grateful. McBryde lets the songwriters trade off on lead vocals, sacrificing the spotlight in the name of character development. But the lyrics are so good, they’d resonate if Elmo sang them. Just the opening lines make us root for and worry about two characters, tossing in some hot goss for good measure: “Brenda put your bra on / There’s trouble next door / Grab a pack of cigarettes and meet me on the porch.” On “Gospel Night at the Strip Club,” Benjy Davis opts to speak the verses, empathizing with every down-on-their-luck Lindevillian he sees. He only sings on the chorus, backed by his fellow storytellers, who properly apply the lessons of the New Testament: “Hallelujah / Hallelujah / Jesus loves the drunkards and the whores and the queers.” If they sang that in church, I might be willing to be saved.

2. Beyoncé – Renaissance

The last three years of our lives have hinged on how we transition. In the face of so many disruptive events, how could we hold onto life’s rhythms? The biggest pop star on earth had this on her mind as she entered the studio at COVID’s height, looking for a way to inspire people having trouble getting back on track. And she found it in the resiliently celebratory world of 1970s ballroom and 1990s dance club culture, crafting an album of disco and house music that’s sequenced like a supreme DJ mix – a mostly uninterrupted journey through decades of Black and LGBTQ+ culture that gives us very little space to stop and dwell on anything else. The magic of Renaissance is all about these effortless transitions. Per usual, Beyoncé brings in an army of incredible writers and producers to make everything glisten just so. But she’s the undeniable maestro. The five-track sequence from “Cozy” to “Break My Soul” is a breathtaking journey of instant classics, chart-baiting empowerment pop transitioning to Nils Rodgers-blessed disco-funk transitioning to Robyn S-sampling, Big Freedia-featuring house. Not only does Beyoncé make all of this work as one continuous jam, she also makes it feel like an attainable level of excellence. “Bet you you’ll see far / Bet you you’ll see stars / Bet you you’ll elevate / Bet you you’ll meet God,” she shares. Feeling comfortable in her confidence, while inspiring us to do the same.  

1. Weyes Blood – And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow

Why does the second installment in a trilogy tend to be the most creatively successful? Because its beginning is immediately familiar, and its ending is both heartbreaking and incomplete. It’s essentially the sensation of a relationship unraveling in the form of an epic tale. In those moments when we ponder Luke’s missing hand, Fredo’s fratricidal fishing trip, or Smeagol ceding control to Gollum for good, we can sit in the unthinkable tragedy and be reminded of our own betrayals and defeats. Safely, of course. Because it’s just a movie, and there’s another one on the way. I’m guessing we’ll be able to add And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow to this list eventually. The second part of a luminous soft rock trilogy by California singer/songwriter Weyes Blood, this album manages to take us back to the cozy confines of 2019’s magnificent Titanic Rising, and improve upon the formula by framing a break-up in the context of everything else that’s broken. Public health. The biosphere. Our attention spans. The artist has said part one was about “impending doom.” And this sequel is about “feeling around in the dark for meaning,” the doom being upon us. If that sounds too bleak, rest assured that this album is ultimately merciful, shimmering with a level of craftsmanship that feels like a favor to us. Weyes Blood continues to perfectly capture the mix of wholesomeness and sadness that made Karen Carpenter such a soothing presence. As warm and forgiving as these pianos and guitars sound, it’s her deep, sincere voice that’s the real balm. “Living in the wake of overwhelming changes / We’ve all become strangers / Even to ourselves,” she sings on the album’s glorious opening ballad. As lonely as that might make us feel, the chorus is there to catch us: “It’s not just me / It’s everybody.” The artist says that part three is going to be about hope. Until then, I’m going to enjoy feeling so understood and unresolved.

Honorable Mentions: $ilkmoney – I Don’t Give a Fuck About This Rap Shit, Imma Just Drop Until I Don’t Feel Like It Anymore; Marisa Anderson – Still, Here; Big Joanie – Back Home; Bjork – Fossora; Brutus – Unison Life; Bill Callahan – YTI⅃AƎЯ; The Comet Is Coming – Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam; Denzel Curry – Melt My Eyez See Your Future; Hatchie – Giving the World Away; Hus Kingpin – Bjorkingpin; Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time; Megan Thee Stallion – Traumazine; Muna – Muna; Ozzy Osbourne – Patient Number 9; Porridge Radio – Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky; Pusha T – It’s Almost Dry: Pharrell vs. Ye; Bonnie Raitt – Just Like That…; Rico Nasty – Las Ruinas; Saba – Few Good Things; Eddie Vedder – Earthling; Kurt Vile – (watch my moves); Wet Leg – Wet Leg

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (40-36)

Hey everybody! Long time no post. If you enjoyed this break from my musical musings, I apologize. But I MUST MUSE! It’s in my blood. The musing, that is. In this latest installment of my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s, we look back at a pair of hip hop classics, the birth of a slacker icon, and so much more…

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40. Rich Gang – Tha Tour: Part I (2014)

Even though he was only 22 in 2014, Young Thug had already taken a long and winding journey through major label hell – signed to two major labels at once, one of them screwing him with a $30k deal (yes, “k” as in thousand). But on Tha Tour: Part I, Thugga’s crew mixtape with fellow Atlantan Rich Homie Quan and Cash Money Records founder Birdman, none of this turmoil seems to be touching him. The album swells with woozy confidence, thanks to the lush, organ-fueled R&B grooves contributed by a murderer’s row of Atlanta trap producers. Thugga and Quan share the stage equally, with the latter’s sturdy tenor proving to be the ideal foil for our star’s effortlessly melodic squawks. The lyrical content is your standard rap ego-trip fodder – sex, money, guns, repeat. And Birdman’s flex-happy interludes up the self-mythologizing ante even more, boasting about gold toilets and having 600 songs in the can. It turns out this was exactly the kind of fantastical comfort zone the group’s star needed. “I come through smoking loud like a whistle / Looking down from the cloud like a rearview,” Young Thug shares, making us believe he’s on top of the world despite all the uncertainty in his life. We never did get Tha Tour: Part II, but we’re lucky this bolt of lightning struck once.

39. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo (2011)

Before record labels, fashion brands, and Cameron Crowe & Richard Linklater films found ways to monetize it in the 1990s, the concept of a “slacker” was its own kind of cool. The way Bob Dylan lazily dropped those “Subterranean Homesick Blues” cue cards back in 1965, it seemed like the guy barely gave a shit, and didn’t we love him all the more for it? It’s this image that comes to mind when I listen to Kurt Vile’s deceptively ramshackle 2011 masterpiece Smoke Ring For My Halo. The man delivers every lyric of these stoner folk songs in a gentle mumble – from the sarcastic “Society Is My Friend” to the romantic “Baby’s Arms.” But instead of coming off like some half-assed bedroom album, SRFMH creates a compelling headspace. Vile’s slacker vocal stylings are a put-on; we know he could hit all these notes with authority if he wanted to. But I say bring on the role-playing – there’s something captivating about this singer who sounds like he doesn’t care if anybody hears him, who just wants to get some things off his chest and then go to bed. Something strangely and indisputably cool.

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38. Ty Segall – Twins (2012)

This Bay Area garage rocker was quite prolific in the ’10s – in 2012 he released three LPs alone, each a lo-fi amphetamine-addict jamboree with its own distinct personality. Twins, the second of this trio, spoke to me the most because it’s the catchiest. Like most of Segall’s efforts, there’s plenty of Stooges-inspired sonic vandalism going on. But Twins isn’t out to bludgeon. It’s stacked with the kind of high-octane hooks that come from deep dives into the British Invasion or the Nuggets box set. Segall’s raw, reedy voice is made for this stuff; at times he sounds like a wet-behind-the-ears John Lennon, honing his chops in the dive bars of Munich. Where its predecessor Slaughterhouse took its name to heart with an aggressive sonic approach, Twins keeps its melodies relatively pristine, whether they’re sweetening the hyperactive hard rock of “You’re the Doctor” or taking flight on the stunning closing ballad, “There Is No Tomorrow.” Segall has made a lot of great music since, but this remains the one my ears and adrenal glands love the most.

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37. Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)

On the first single of his major label debut, Kendrick Lamar raps about being alone in his childhood bedroom, nursing a shot and dreaming of adoring fans. One voice in his head tells him that he should dive in a swimming pool full of liquor. Another says that he’s noxious and on the wrong path. It’s a compelling, heartbreaking metaphysical struggle, and only one kind of conflict that arises on good kid, m.A.A.d city, the rapper’s concept album about growing up with all the cards stacked against you. He falls in love, gives in to peer pressure, almost gets arrested and watches his friend commit murder, all while ignoring the voicemails from his mother (who isn’t worried about him; she just wants the car so she can leave the house). Words spill from Lamar’s mouth in a flow that’s second nature; every time he spits 16, it sounds like he could go for 160. Which makes his incisive personal and sociological observations all the more powerful, woven through laid-back loops that belie his tumultuous roots.

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36. Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest (2019)

When Bill Callahan released his sixth LP under his given name, I had just started reading Jane Austen for the first time, injecting Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice straight into my bloodstream. Of all the ways these classics moved me, I was especially struck by the quietness of their romantic denouements. When Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy finally profess their love for one another – after 250 pages of nervous misunderstandings in drawing rooms – it’s over in a minute. No grand gestures are made. Their feelings are enough. On the loose, unassuming double-album Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, Bill Callahan channels Austen’s straightforwardness about love. Six years removed from his previous album – the more traditionally lovestruck Dream River – Shepherd found the artist reflecting on the joys of being a husband and father, more rooted in his bliss, performing humbly arranged songs in his home studio as if his wife had requested them via a note on the fridge. “The panic room is now a nursery / And there’s renovators renovating constantly,” he shares on “Son of the Sea,” finding peace in the ebb and flow of domestic life. For the majority of his career, Callahan has been more of a wandering cowboy type, philosophizing about life’s grandest mysteries, with the dramatic instrumentation to match. So it was especially moving to hear him speak plainly, as a man grateful for finding his people, and for the way they’ve shepherded him home.

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (45-41)

In this latest installment of my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s, we look back at a Chicago rapper not named Kanye who seemed destined to take over the world, a resurrected British death metal band defibrillating our hearts, a singer/songwriter who taught us just how beautiful sadness could be, and more!

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45. Sharon Van Etten – Are We There (2014)

Some voices were meant to convey ache. Like Roy Orbison. Or Hank Williams. Or Sharon Van Etten. The Brooklyn transplant warranted comparisons to such hallowed figures on her fourth album, a hypnotic collection of songs about need, and all the stupid and callous ways that others fail at fulfilling it. “I need you to be afraid of nothing,” she sings on the record’s first song, her voice leaping into a yodel on that second word like an eagle peeking above the cloud line. On a record with a three-word title that contains multitudes (Do we exist? Have we reached those goals that we set? Is this the end?, etc.) the production is appropriately reserved-yet-bottomless, a mix of chiming Americana and muffled electronics that sounds like Raising Sand getting lost on a foggy night. It’s the perfect milieu for Van Etten to sing like she’s holding nothing back. Like Roy, she can sing with the kind of quaver that reveals whatever beauty there is to see in the rawest grief. It’s a voice that can bemoan “your love is killing me,” and at the same time be absolute proof that life is good.

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44. Chance The Rapper – Acid Rap (2013)

Smoking cigarettes doesn’t quite have the cultural cache that it used to – these days, kids need an especially potent sense of mischief, rebellion and self-loathing to get hooked. It’s this precise emotional cocktail that fueled Chance The Rapper on Acid Rap, where he gives the performance that first launched him to stardom – and one he’s yet to match. Chance already had a fully formed persona here, a laughing-and-pointing playground pest whose vulnerability is clearly visible between all the “nyeah nyeah, nyeah-nyeah-nyeahs.” He littered his verses with a mischievous, nasal quack, which logic dictates should be annoying, but ends up being essential to the experience. “Cigarettes, oh cigarettes/My mama think I stink/I got burn holes in my hoodies/All my homies think it’s dank,” Chance sings over the trembling church organ of “Cocoa Butter Kisses,” making fun of himself while making us root for him at the same time. I’m still addicted, and not just because it makes me look cool.

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43. Helado Negro – This Is How You Smile (2019)

Anger is a valid and necessary response to the times we live in. But there’s also something to be said for quiet optimism. On his sixth album as Helado Negro, singer/songwriter Roberto Carlos Lange delivered soothing balms of hope, in the form of whispered, bilingual electro-folk ballads. When struggling to find a healthy perspective, Lange’s reassuring truths are good medicine. “We’ll take our turn / We’ll take our time / Knowing that we’ll be here long after you,” he softly croons to our 45th president on “Pais Nublado,” embodying the polar opposite of his spittle-flecked neuroses, buoyed by washes of electronics and leisurely acoustic strumming. The achingly beautiful, steel drum-infused “Imagining What To Do” also preaches patience: “We wait softly / Looking for the sun to come back tomorrow.” Before we can fight for what we believe in, we need the peace of mind to believe it’s possible.

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42. Carcass – Surgical Steel (2013)

I suspect my relationship with death is like most Americans – it gives me a hazy, queasy feeling that I quickly distract myself from with the bounty of cheap food and endless entertainment at my disposal. So when an existential coward like me puts on a record like Surgical Steel, I feel a crazed, drooling kind of glee – here’s a group of middle-aged British guys who channel their death obsession into 52 minutes of relentless, chest cavity-collapsing thrash. This was Carcass’ first record since breaking up in 1996, and it was (ironically) a stunning rebirth, with Jeff Walker’s mostly unintelligible, coked-up-harpy vocals doing god knows what kind of damage to his throat over Dan Wilding’s firebomb drumming, as the guitars deliver just enough catchy Iron Maiden interplay to make beautiful sense of the chaos. And when you listen closely enough to make out a line or two, chances are it’s worth the effort (e.g. “A working class hero is something to bleed.”). Metal has always been a refuge for the insecure, but discovering a Carcass with this much life in it made me especially grateful for every drop of blood I’ve got.

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41. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away (2013)

If anybody was worried that original guitarist Mick Harvey’s 2009 exit from the Bad Seeds would finally blunt the superhuman momentum of Nick Cave’s most longstanding incarnation, the opening track on their first album without him – “We Know Who U R” – made it quite clear that all was well. Or should I say mesmerizingly unwell: “The tree don’t care what the little bird sings,” Cave croons over stark, echoing synths, launching into a gothic environmentalist lament that ends with a literal scorched earth. Push the Sky Away is full of songs like this – ominous pre-dawn ballads that are no less frightening for their prettiness. It’s as if the group decided to let their old mate’s absence be an instrument of its own. Gone were Harvey’s catchy riffs and split-lip punk ragers, replaced by open spaces for minor synth chords to gently reverberate. Far from a sign of a band in decline, its 15th album marked a new beginning; the Bad Seeds have been exploring the dark corners of our consciousness in starker, more vulnerable ways ever since.

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (50-46)

WHOOOOOAAAA we’re halfway there! WHOOOOOAAAAA it’s entries 50-46 in my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s!

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50. Phosphorescent – Muchacho (2013)

Matthew Houck’s albums have always been delicate affairs, perfect for the emotional rollercoaster one goes through while nursing a hangover – confusion, regret, inexplicable elation, then regret again. So it’s quite fitting that his sixth album as Phosphorescent was inspired by a lonely, heartsick period in Mexico, where an exhausted Houck mourned the loss of his NYC studio (which had to be moved thanks to re-zoning) and the demise of a relationship. But this time around, the singer/songwriter was just as interested in the party that happens before the pity-party, resulting in the most robust production of his career – in between the fragile, spiritual beauty of the record’s sunrise/sunset bookends, Muchacho contains pedal-steel swathed country strolls, a ragged, swirling Neil Young-ish opus, and 1980s adult contemporary synths. Like all Phosphorescent records, it’s threaded together by the distinctly earnest, about-to-crack nature of Houck’s voice, which can make a line like “I’ll fix myself up, to come and be with you” sound like a solemn promise.

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49. Bjork – Vulnicura (2015)

When Bjork released Vespertine in 2001, it was the most direct statement of her career. Starry-eyed, triumphant, vulnerable and otherworldly, it remains a breathtakingly accurate depiction of an all-consuming love. Fourteen years later came the denouement. Vulnicura details the demise of Bjork’s marriage in the same stark, unflinching way that Vespertine celebrated its beginning. It’s a devastating work. The artist and co-producers Arca and The Haxan Cloak paint pictures of dissolution with little more than a string section and a spare drum machine. The story arc begins with our narrator seeing the cracks in the foundation, surprised at how little she cares. “Maybe he will come out of this / Maybe he won’t / Somehow I’m not too bothered / Either way,” Bjork sings in ghostly three-part harmony, extracting as much wonder from winter as she once did from spring.

48. Behemoth – The Satanist (2014)

It makes sense for a person to find religion after a near-death experience. This was true for Adam Darski (aka Nergal), the screamer/songwriter of Polish extreme metal band Behemoth, who fought a harrowing battle with leukemia in 2010-11. It’s just that after coming out the other side and cracking open his Bible, he proceeded to tear it to shreds. On The Satanist, his band’s 10th LP, Nergal wrings an absurd amount of drama out of songs that lay bare the hypocrisy of the goings-on in Eden, Gethsamene, and Mount Sinai, using mournfully plucked acoustic guitars, blaring horn sections, spoken word breakdowns, and ominous choruses as dynamic counterpoints to Behemoth’s trademark onslaught. “Art must destroy,” Nergal muses in the liner notes. “True Artists need a personal abyss to peer into and to let it stare back into them.” When I hear the latest crime against humanity shrouded in the piety of Christ, The Satanist is that abyss for me.

47. Screaming Females – Ugly (2012)

Back in 2012, nostalgia for the 1990s was starting to become a real pitch point for pop culture makers, with Lisa Frank, Men In Black, Boy Meets World, Soundgarden, and Total Recall all returning in some form. And while the New Brunswick, NJ, rock trio Screaming Females had been making eardrums rattle since 2005, the timing of its fifth album felt of a piece with a year where Old Navy put the cast of 90210 in an ad. Ugly is a molten-hot shitkicker of a record that hearkened back to Gen X touchstones like Smashing Pumpkins’ Gish and Sleater-Kinney’s Dig Me Out, with walls of guitars thicker than a bank safe and vocals that tremble and snarl. (The fact that Marissa Paternoster is solely responsible for said vocals and guitars is a testament to her genius.) But Ugly was more than a time capsule; after delivering one indelible riff after another, and treating us to late-record masterpieces like the epochal “Doom 84,” Screaming Females distinguished itself as one of the gutsiest bands of the 2010s.

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46. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 2 (2014)

The chemistry between indie-rap legends Killer Mike and El-P was apparent on their 2011 debut, which didn’t try to be much more than a document of talented wise-asses having fun. This second effort, however, was the first time Run the Jewels felt like something more than a side project. The beats were richer and rangier. The subject matter was more serious. And that top-shelf shit-talk came from pride and momentum as much as the need to blow off steam. Ironically, these aging legends who had never sniffed the mainstream had found each other at just the right time, stumbling across an unimpeachable formula for rap bangers that brought political outrage to your gym playlist without ever feeling inauthentic. Run The Jewels 2 remains a great listen because of the artistry on display, but it’s that release of pent-up frustration that still makes me want to thank god for each breath while setting fire to the neighborhood.

by sweensryche

The Gen X Rock Doctor Is In!

A lot of things have to go right to become a rock star. Some mixture of timing and talent and luck that’s about as likely as this post getting a million views. But to become a rock star with longevity? To stay socially relevant and creatively inspired and physically capable of touring well into middle age? That’s just a magic trick.

As I slide into my mid-40s like an obese cat dragging itself across the linoleum, I find myself interested in how my fellow Gen Xers are holding up. Several have released albums this year, which I’ve listened to with the ear of a doctor, searching for any slowed reflexes, emerging arrhythmias, or unhealthy anxieties about getting older.

The doctor is in!

Patient #1: Eddie Vedder


Of the ’90s rock poster boys, Eddie Vedder always seemed like the one who was built for the long haul. It’s easy to read too much into Pearl Jam’s decision to stop making videos and battle Ticketmaster at the height of its fame, but in retrospect, they were the actions of young men looking at the big picture. Earthling keeps that narrative intact, with the 57-year-old leapfrogging between sounds with more energy than you might expect, and a healthy amount of humility. The jangly “Long Way” is a self-aware Tom Petty rip-off, with actual Heartbreaker Benmont Tench on keys. The ballad “Mrs. Mills” is a self-aware Paul McCartney ripoff that pays homage to the British music hall pianist who hit it big in the early ’60s alongside her label-mates The Beatles. And “Try” gives Pearl Jam’s garage-punk roots a poppier, grown-up makeover, its lyrics about pure, earnest effort sexier than any pick-up line could ever be.

Diagnosis: Some slight wear and tear in your vocal cords and lyric sheets – but it really works for you Eddie. Your passion has always been evident, but in the old days it could cross over into non-sensical mutter-growling. I like this older, calmer you. By being open about your influences and not trend-chasing, you’ve ironically made the freshest-sounding Pearl Jam-related project in over a decade!

Treatment: Keep being true to yourself, and you will keep doing right by your music.

Patient #2: Red Hot Chili Peppers

“My life is a rope swing, always headin’ back to where I came,” sings Anthony Kiedis on his band’s first album in six years. It’s an apt metaphor, because with Unlimited Love, Red Hot Chili Peppers are trying to pull the same trick they did with 1999’s Californication – welcome guitarist/vocalist/aesthetic compass John Frusciante back in the fold to help draw out the beauty in their sound. And while this record lacks the sweeping hooks and fragile gravitas of its older cousin, it’s a worthy addition to their catalog. Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith still vibe beautifully together, turning spacious ballads like “Let ‘Em Cry” into melodic showcases and putting just enough polish on their trademark funk vamps so they feel older and wiser. The X factor, as usual, is the 59-year-old Kiedis, who continues to think lines just need to rhyme and the words themselves are merely incidental: “The seventies were such a win / Singing the Led Zeppelin / Lizzy lookin’ mighty thin / The Thompsons had another twin,” he raps in the abysmal “Poster Child.” But just as you’re ready to write him off, he’ll throw himself into a line like “It’s been a long time since I made a new friend,” and you’ll be reminded about how, despite all the blood and sex, this band has never skimped on the sugar and magic.

Diagnosis: Your age is showing, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Your reflexes are duller, and your energy flags a bit over 17 tracks. But you seem happy, and in a comfortable groove, letting the spark of old chemistry propel you forward. As long as you don’t expect to top the charts or attract a bunch of new fans, you’ve got a fulfilling third act of your career ahead of you.

Treatment: Icy Hot to soothe those forced rhyme schemes. Stay out of the sun, or else you might write songs with “California” in the title again. And keep spending time together!

Patient #3: The Smile

It wasn’t always clear how Radiohead would handle aging. It’s healthy to have a sense of one’s own mortality, but these guys have always been obsessed with the pointlessness of it all. “Cracked eggs / Dead birds / Scream as they fight for life,” sang a 26-year-old Thom Yorke on the final track of the disillusioned masterpiece The Bends. 27 years later, this side project from Yorke, guitarist Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner has an outlook that’s just as bleak, but it’s informed by something different. A Light for Attracting Attention delivers what we’d hope from a late Radiohead record – Yorke’s voice beckoning like an alien siren, post-punk grooves elevated by odd time signatures, waves of melody soothing us out of nowhere like a radio broadcast from a happier time. But there are some elements that are purely The Smile, too – most prominently Skinner’s drum solo that kicks off “The Opposite,” which sounds like the beginning of a sweaty funk workout from The Meters and absolutely made me check to see if Apple Music was on shuffle. For an album that’s not interested in being catchy, this rhythmic pulse from a live drummer is critical, a still-beating umbilical cord that helps us understand there can be comfort in nihilism. “When we realize we are broke and nothing mends / We can drop under the surface,” the 53-year-old Yorke observes on the closing “Skrting On the Surface.” It’s not an argument for suicide, but acceptance. The older we get, the thinner the ice. What’s wrong with picking out our wetsuit?

Diagnosis: Thom. Jonny. You’re in exceptional shape for your age. You made a whole album about the dehumanizing impact of technology, but you’re making me wonder if you were the robots all along. How else can you explain the fact that you’re still able to make music that goes to such beautiful, lonely places, while somehow making us feel less alone?

Treatment: If you truly are carbon-based, just stick to your current diet and exercise plan, which I assume is tea, plant-based energy bars and staring out rain-spattered windows.

Patient #4: Jack White

When you get famous for leading a band that checks many of the traditionally “cool” boxes of electric guitar-based music – loud, unpolished, defiant but also romantic, branded with signature colors – it can be tough to begin the next phase of your career. Especially if you’re as much of a tech nerd as Jack White, who is now as much of an advocate for vinyl pressing plants as he is a rock star. His fourth solo LP, Fear of the Dawn, has the same upsides and weaknesses of previous efforts – richer-sounding White Stripes-ish riffs coupled with interesting production wrinkles that all sound good, but feel a bit aimless without the steady, intangible pulse of Meg White’s drums. My favorite parts are the most experimental, like “Hi-De-Ho,” a melodramatic blues-rap freakout that pairs White’s simple riff with verses from Q-Tip and a prominent Cab Calloway sample. I also love the concept – an image-obsessed 45-year-old rocker petrified of the sunrise, another day further away from his glory days. “Eosophobia” uses the scientific term for this fear over delightfully syncopated drum-and-guitar interplay that reinvents the White Stripes formula into something weirdly wonderful. Maybe this is the transition record that White needed to make before he could finally throw open the curtains and move on.

Diagnosis: Jack, I’m proud of the self-awareness you’re showing here, translating your fear of aging into art. But you need to trust those instincts even more. You are showing signs of early-stage carpal tunnel, retreading those familiar punk-blues riffs over and over. Embrace your mid-life shift into an obscure LP/vintage instrument-hoarding weirdo and see what happens! Excited for your next check-up.

Treatment: Rest those old guitar-shredding muscles – they’re tired!

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (55-51)

Here are entries 55-51 in my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s! Read on for a look back at a singer/songwriter rejecting the “dad rock” label; a middle-aged rapper turning his high school years into high drama, and so much more!

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55. Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo (2018)

I’m not nearly cultured enough to properly convey what this Houston trio’s second album sounds like. It bears more passport stamps than any record on this list, incorporating Thai, Spanish and Middle Eastern influences into the kind of grooves that will turn any walk into a strut. Mark Speer’s acrobatic guitar playing is center stage, slithering its way through “Maria También” with venomous grace. But that song would be mere noodling without Laura Lee’s searching bass and DJ Johnson’s breezy drums. It sounds like Ennio Morricone recording for Stax. This cosmic chemistry is all over Con Todo El Mundo, which showcases the most beautiful thing a band can be – an interconnected support system of otherwise-impossible sounds. When they dip their toes into jazz balladry on “Hymn,” Johnson’s congas and sleigh bells are the perfect top notes to the reverb-drenched guitar and beseeching bass. And when they do decide to add vocals to a track, it’s profoundly minimal. After the sand-dune-smooth riff that opens “Evan Finds the Third Room,” Lee voices what we’re all thinking: “Yes!”

54. Feist – Metals (2011)

In October 2011, Nitsuh Abebe wrote an iconic piece for New York magazine called “Indie Grown-Ups,” which posited that artists like Wilco and Feist were our generation’s Sting – a once-unique voice that softened to the point where his music can be piped in at your dentist’s office. But while Feist does have some of the trappings of middle-of-the-road adult contemporary, her third LP – released the same year as Abebe’s article – proved she’s more dangerous than you’d think. Metals features a color palette of dark and darker greys, which amass into looming storms that crack the heavens in our headphones. It was a far cry from the iPod commercial-ready twee-folk the Nova Scotia singer/songwriter had been known for up to that point. “How Come You Never Go There” swings with a dark, sinister rhythm. “Comfort Me” stomps and swoons. And “A Commotion” features a percussive blast that makes good on its title. This is what remains so compelling about Metals – there are soft rock hooks-a-plenty here, but they’re weighted down so elegantly, you just might find yourself at the bottom of a lake, feeling strangely at home.

53. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach (2010)

When Damon Albarn’s band of animated hipsters released its self-titled debut in 2001, it felt like a lark, a fun side project that let the artist scratch his hip hop itch. But listening to the wildly eclectic sounds, indelible melodies and post-apocalyptic concepts of Plastic Beach, it’s clear that by 2010, Albarn had realized that his “other” band was the one he was meant to lead. On paper, the formula was pretty much the same as the first two Gorillaz discs – get a crackerjack group of guest artists and let them run wild over chilled-out electronic grooves. But for the first time, the songs were as adventurous as the guests, full of moody Britpop atmospheres, burbling funk jams, aching bursts of R&B and full-on orchestral bombast. “White Flag” acts as a microcosm of it all, combining the hypnotic Eastern melodies of The Lebanese National Orchestra with bursts of playful electro-rap. And when Albarn followed it up with the post-punk ballad “Rhinestone Eyes,” singing about how his love’s peepers glitter “like factories far away,” it became clear that these Gorillaz weren’t quite so cartoonish after all.

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52. Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer (2018)

Janelle Monáe’s talent has always been enough. Her ear for indelible hooks, adventurous arrangements and effective collaborators has made her records feel like signposts for the future of R&B – despite the fact that all of them were weighed down by confusing dystopian sci-fi premises. Until Dirty Computer, that is. Monáe’s third LP is technically a concept album, but for the first time in her discography, it didn’t matter. The songwriting reckoned with real life. In this world. “I’m not America’s nightmare / I’m the American dream,” Monáe declares over the confident synths of “Crazy, Classic, Life.” This is the album in microcosm – a stark acknowledgement of the challenges facing the black and LGBTQ+ communities in Donald Trump’s America, and a simultaneous declaration of exuberant badassery. It was the most politically present, and openly romantic, Monáe had ever been – and the melodies bubbled up and embraced us like always. “Pynk” turned an Aerosmith sample into a test tube of life-sustaining sunshine. “Screwed” boasted one of the snappiest guitar riffs of 2018. And “Make Me Feel” did justice to Prince’s memory by fusing funk and pop and lust and love into an interplanetary cocktail of truth.

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51. Masta Ace – The Falling Season (2016)

A great storyteller finds humanity in the mundane. Like a math class, or a bus ride, or a conversation with your mother about what high school you should go to. These are moments that Masta Ace wrote about on The Falling Season, an utterly absorbing, 23-track hip-hopera about the rapper’s years at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn. The 48-year-old MC was on top of his game throughout, his couplets shading in characters and pushing the plot forward with ease. The skits were skillfully written and performed, especially a monologue by self-described “Italian tough guy” Fats that gets interrupted in a sweetly humorous way. Ace had been polishing his skills as an underground rap raconteur since 1990, and you hear all of those years on this record, his words infused with hard-won wisdom, his flow steady and reassuring. It wasn’t the first rap album to romanticize an artist’s past, but it might still be the only successful one from a rapper who had reached middle-age. Which makes The Falling Season an especially rich self-portrait, full of conflicting feelings informed by decades of nostalgia and regret.

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (60-56)

Here are entries 60-56 in my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s! Read on for my musings on a band that dropped five albums in one year, a famous rapper who didn’t release a solo album until he was 36, and an even more famous rapper who charmed us with the lie that he started from the bottom, which is ironic because he’s been lost up his own bottom ever since.

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60. Tribulation – The Children of the Night (2015)

If you ever hear somebody bemoaning the lack of good guitar-based music these days (like, if you’re Dave Grohl’s fishing buddy), hand them a copy of this, the third LP from Swedish gothic metal band Tribulation. The Children of the Night is stuffed with the kind of layered, anthemic, utterly beautiful guitar interplay that will have you considering airbrushing a Gandalf/Balrog fight on the hood of your Honda Civic. When paired with a penchant for theatrical organ playing and singer Johannes Andersson’s gravesoil-spewing croak, Tribulation creates a completely immersive experience, where you can hear about the existence of gateways to netherworlds populated by dreaming corpses and be like, “of course.”

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59. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear (2015)

I Love You, Honeybear is like a vintage Elton John performance in more ways than one – it features rich, sad vocals buoyed by strings, and it’s marked by a penchant for costumes. Recording for the second time under the guise of his sarcastic crooner-douche character Father John Misty, singer/songwriter Joshua Tillman fell into an ironically confessional groove. Behind the armor of a beard and fitted suit, Tillman can tell us that he’s in love, that it makes him brash and boastful, that it also terrifies him. On the closing “I Went to the Store One Day,” the band takes five, and Tillman finds complete freedom in his disguise. Over his own gentle acoustic strum, he sings about heading out on a routine errand, and learning that fate can feel tangible: “For love to find us of all people / I never thought it’d be so simple.”

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58. Pusha T – My Name Is My Name (2013)

After the demise of Clipse in 2010, anticipation was high for the first official solo record from that duo’s more dynamic half – Pusha-T. But by 2013, the Virginia rapper still hadn’t proven he could carry a record. While hip hop is friendlier to its elder statesmen than it used to be, a bust from Push here would’ve been a killer. Not that he sounds concerned at all on My Name Is My Name. Over the raw industrial clatter of “Numbers On the Boards,” he lays claim to “36 years of doin’ dirt like it’s Earth Day,” his gruff, laconic flow selling the hardest beat of the year, illustrating the grime and glory of selling drugs in a way that still feels weathered from experience. Even with the murderer’s row of talent producing him (Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, The-Dream, etc.) and a top-form guest spot from Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T dominates with a steady hand, like the lone survivor in a deal gone wrong.

57. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Polygondwanaland (2017)

In November 2016, the genre-hopping Australian rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announced they would be dropping five full-length albums of new music the following year. And not only did the ambitious sextet make good on this promise, but they did it without lowering their standards. These records actually picked up steam as the year progressed, with the fourth one, Polygondwanaland, reaching a dizzying pinnacle of exquisitely arranged psychedelic rock. From the epic 10-minute opener “Crumbling Castles” to the stoner metal freakout that caps off “The Fourth Color,” this LP sounds like anything but a rush job. In fact, these addictively energetic tracks segue into one another so effortlessly, it feels like we’re being shot into the sky on a ship piloted by careful, experienced adventurers.

Nothing Was The Same

56. Drake – Nothing Was the Same (2013)

The most compelling thing about Drake in the 2010s (other than it being a time before we knew what a fricking creep he is) was the way he had his cake and ate it too – crafting verses drenched in both bravado and insecurity; making references to his days as a child star while also saying he started from the bottom; making music that’s muted and moody, yet somehow perfectly calibrated for the pop charts. These dichotomies could be infuriating in lesser hands, but on Nothing Was the Same, Drake’s collective strengths, weaknesses, priorities and fears coalesced into a story as seamless as its exquisitely sequenced tracks. It helps that he’s looking wistfully to the past instead of droning on about the present, creating a two-song sequence inspired by Wu-Tang Clan’s magnanimous 1997 single “It’s Yourz” that marks the last time this problematic megastar sounded believably lovestruck.

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (65-61)

Here are entries 65-61 in my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the 2010s! This time around we have a pair of singular singer-songwriters, a famous indie-pop band swinging for the arena fences, a dance music legend, and one hell of a film composer.

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65. Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp (2015)

Ivy Tripp is one of those raw-nerve breakup albums that finds clarity in despair. Katie Crutchfield’s songs are all about sifting through wreckage, directing blame, taking brief escapes through nostalgia. Yet there’s real comfort in them, the reserved, homespun production a testament to the healing powers of a focused mind. No matter how many sad-sack, Reznor-ian sentiments Crutchfield throws at her work – e.g. “You’re less than me / I am nothing” – it never comes close to toppling. Whether it’s through a lone organ run, a gentle rockabilly groove, or an extra-slow, hunched-shoulder riff, every one of these tracks is built to be a grower.

64. Daniel Knox – Evryman for Himself (2011)

When a singer/songwriter gets sarcasm right, the clouds part for me. So when I saw Daniel Knox perform live, as the opening act for a Rasputina show I was covering for my local paper, my jaw may have literally dropped. This disheveled Zach Galifianakis lookalike was putting his own spin on the Randy Newman formula – friendly piano shuffles that attempt to distract us from Eeyore-on-a-bad-day lyrics, inspiring big, ironic belly laughs in the process. Knox was touring behind his second album, Evryman for Himself, and it remains his best. “Billboards tell me where to go / Billboards to my favorite show / Syphilis and cancer!” he croons in his playful baritone on the closing “Armageddonsong,” projecting hopelessness and joy at the same time. If humans are capable of this level of nuance, maybe we’re not completely doomed.

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63. Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015)

Going by the title of this London ensemble’s third LP, one might expect a collection of songs that look outward, searching for profundity in the expanses above us. Instead, we get the opposite. These tracks are so focused on the internal workings of their creator that they make a delayed phone conversation feel like a burgeoning electrical storm, giving love the power to hurl us into canyons – breaking bones, but not our devotion. Florence Welch isn’t merely exploring her emotions here. She’s calling them to the mat, with a voice that could bend street signs. Factor in sweeping arrangements that rise like tempers, and we have a record that transforms the daily commute into a grand, cathartic singalong. Because while the universe is vast and intimidating, it’s got nothing against the fear that goes hand in hand with falling for someone. 

62. Kylie Minogue – Aphrodite (2010)

I like to pretend I don’t care what anybody thinks about me – take one look at my car and you’ll almost be convinced. But ask me to dance, and the facade evaporates. I’ll respond by a) totally freezing up, and then b) doing “The Twist” ironically to cover up my crippling fear. This is my best way of explaining why Kylie Minogue’s music means so much to me. “Dance / It’s all I wanna do / So won’t you dance?” the Aussie legend asks – with zero judgment in her voice – at the beginning of her sublime 11th album, as burbling synthesizers build up to the first of many triumphant disco-pop choruses to come. Aphrodite explores various nuances of interpersonal dance floor dynamics, but mostly it’s about those moments where music hits us like Cupid’s arrow, blissfully transporting us to a place where our anxieties can’t reach us. So I can remain a wallflower, and still understand.

61. Jonny Greenwood – Phantom Thread: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2018)

When asked to score this stunningly specific period romance from director Paul Thomas Anderson, composer Jonny Greenwood opted against the style he had so memorably established on previous Anderson films. Gone was the stark horror of There Will Be Blood and the sad, shattered symphonies of The Master. Instead, Greenwood wrote orchestral suites as elegant and traditional as the gowns designed by Phantom Thread’s fastidious main character, Reynolds Woodcock. As the troubled minor-key strings of “Phantom Thread” give way to the enveloping warmth of “Sandalwood,” this score plays a critical role in establishing how Alma Elson is the nurturing, unflappable yin to Reynolds’s sensitive, self-protective yang. This is the sound of soul mates harmonizing.

by sweensryche

Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (70-66)

Here are entries 70-66 in my seemingly never-ending countdown of my 100 favorite albums from the past 10 years!

70. Tune-Yards – Whokill (2011)

“Ready or not / I’m a new kind of killer,” announces Merrill Garbus on her second LP as Tune-Yards. And if you consider what’s happening around her right after she sings those words, it’s clearly not an empty boast – a ukulele-driven Afro-Pop groove dissembles into chaos, as bass player Nate Brenner continues to play bubbly low-end notes as if he didn’t get the memo. Whokill is defined by this paint-can-hurling approach to genre experimentation, taking Garbus’s uke-and-loop-machine approach to live shows and splicing in homages to funk, folk, reggae, synth-pop, punk and power balladry with zero concern for overloading our eardrums. It all works, against all odds, due to the power of Garbus’s voice and the preternatural chemistry between her and Brenner. If we lose the thread among the layered vocal loops and stuttering drums of “Bizness,” it all locks in when Brenner’s bass arrives, locking it all down so Garbus can wail to the heavens, begging her partner, “Don’t take my life away!” Not every idea has aged well – particularly “Gangsta,” a well-intended but discomfiting depiction of the challenges of life in “my hood.” But it’s a rare misfire on a record that remains one of the boldest artistic leaps of the 2010s.

69. Rick Ross – Rich Forever (2012)

Remember January 2012, when presidential candidate/alleged carbon-based life form Mitt Romney released his tax returns, and they revealed a shady Swiss bank account in his name? Me neither! Until I read what I wrote in this space back then about Miami rapper Rick Ross: “It seems like a bad time for Rick Ross to drop a mixtape that tells us how great it is to have a fuckton of dough,” wrote the younger, more casually vulgar me, blissfully unaware of how much worse a toxic-rich-guy president could be. And while the star of conspicuous consumption rap has definitely faded over the last decade, Rich Forever still works, because it still sounds as expensively aerodynamic as an Italian sports car. The tape’s thunderous, trunk-rattling production acts like an echo chamber for Ross’s performative ego, as he turns his drug kingpin character into something delightfully cartoonish, painting ridiculous Robin Leach panoramas with irresistible panache. While Rich Forever is loaded with quality guests – Nas, 2 Chainz, Kelly Rowland, Future, etc. – the boss is never outshone, coming up with a clever way to say he’s rich on every cut (e.g. “Gotta run your credit just to bring my name up”).

68. Grinderman – Grinderman 2 (2010)

Usually when you hear a PR narrative along the lines of “[LEGACY ARTIST] is rocking again,” it’s a red flag. Either because it’s not true (e.g. any post-2001 Radiohead album) or it sounds like warmed-up leftovers from the glory days (e.g. most of Metallica’s 21st century efforts). But when Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds transformed into Grinderman in 2008, growing mustaches and skullets to match its brand of greasy, irreverent punk-metal, no spin was necessary. On its second LP, the Australian legends continued to drive our equalizers into the red, but in the context of more expansive soundscapes, favoring visceral slow-builds over the breakneck tempos of its debut. It’s an ideal balance, an evolution that took this band from a fun lark to a weighty artistic force, while still allowing Cave to howl like a wolf, growl “huuuh!” and “yeah!” like a whiskey-drunk James Brown, and deliver bawdy one-liners with aplomb – “Well my baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster / Two humps and then I’m gone.”

67. Young Thug – Jeffery (2016)

One of the dominant storylines on the pop landscape in the ’10s was Drake’s refusal to come back to earth – co-opting one trend after another to maintain his stranglehold on the charts. At his peak, Young Thug was an opposing force to that massive star’s patient calculations – a rapper who records hooks like they’re burning a hole in his pocket, stuffing every track with unexpected melodic flourishes, stamping it as his own with visceral barks and yelps. On his hit mixtape Jeffery, that profound ability is paired with buoyant, dancehall-indebted trap beats that give Thug lots of space to do his thing. As a result, every track fizzes over with undeniable power, like champagne from a fire hose. “I’m geeked up like an astronaut / I’m off the Earth / I’m way in the moon” he raps over reflective piano chords, looking down on us affectionately from his perch at the top of the game. It’s ironic that Thug named almost all of these songs after his personal heroes – including Wyclef Jean, Rihanna and Harambe the gorilla – because he was transcending all of his influences, while creating some of the most infectiously exuberant music of his time.

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66. The Mountain Goats – Beat the Champ (2015)

You don’t need to care about pro wrestling to appreciate John Darnielle’s 15th record. But if you’ve ever been in love, caved under pressure, or searched for goodness in the world, Beat the Champ has something for you. The singer/songwriter uses the squared circle as a launching pad for autobiography, explaining his childhood obsession with regional star Chavo Guerrero – “I need justice in my life/ Here it comes.” Elsewhere, the metaphors fly like feigned punches, from the sweetly romantic tale of a long-sundered tag team to the unexpected sting of a foreign object in your eye. In his inimitable, nasally verbose way, Darnielle turns what could have been a novelty record into a strikingly emotional work. He is the world champion of wistful pride.

by sweensryche

The Top 20 Albums of 2021

We thought we could see it this year. Brightening the edges of our curtains. Warming the pillows of our reading nooks. Landing on our screens to interrupt our binges. We thought it was The Light, and for a few glorious weeks we scrambled out of our tunnels into it, the possibilities blossoming with the spring.

Even me, who thinks the pandemic has been stuffed with silver linings – more time with my wife, working from home, the best excuse ever to avoid meeting new people – was excited at the prospect of going to restaurants again, traveling again, breathing again.

But it was just a temporary break in the clouds. Even so, I’m here to report 20 sightings of a different kind of Light. The kind that humans create when an undefined urge demands they express themselves, be it through an instrument, or their vocal chords, or their pen. These are the albums that reminded me what humanity is capable of in 2021 – if we can create these, surely we can figure out a way to leave this tunnel for good.

20. Georgia Anne Muldrow – Vweto III

The Light from a Crossing Signal Switching from “STOP” to “MOVE”

The third installment in this R&B visionary’s series of instrumental hip hop albums acknowledges that, even when you strip life down to its building blocks, it’s still complicated and intriguing as hell. “Vweto” is a Congolese word for “gravity,” but with every effervescent bass line and echoing drum pattern, Muldrow reassures us that we can still pick up our feet and move. Our tether to this planet might be unbreakable, but damn is it flexible.

19. Unto Others – Strength

The Light of a Bedside Table Lamp, Where a 15-Year Old Is Reading The Catcher in the Rye and Nodding Solemnly

On 2019’s Mana, the band formerly known as Idle Hands served up a bubbling cauldron of Satan worship and goth-pop hooks that spoke to the sullen young dork in all of us. A few years and a name change later, the Portland, OR, quartet returned with Strength – an attempt to be more serious that succeeds in spite of itself. The heart-on-sleeve Depeche Mode flourishes are tempered by chilly Police guitar figures, and the blasphemy is scrubbed away. But Strength sticks with me regardless, because this band remains utterly committed to expressing outsized, borderline-embarrassing emotions with a straight face, while churning out hooks for days.

18. Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life

The Light of a Neon “OPEN” Sign In a 1980 NYC Dive Bar

This Brooklyn post-punk institution begins the second act of its decade-long career on its seventh LP, where it expands its scope to explore danceable, immersive, bass-driven new wave soundscapes without completely abandoning the Stooges and Velvets worship of its early records. On “Marathon of Anger,” a recounting of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in New York City, singer Andrew Savage engages in a mesmerizing call and response with his bandmates, while synths bloop, a simple bass line swings, and guitars deliver chilly funk accents. It’s an evocative RSVP to the similarly serpentine invitation David Byrne sent out over 40 years ago – to join him in embracing the passage of time, watching the water flow as the days go by.

17. iLoveMakonnen – My Parade

The Light of the Embers in a Fireplace That’s Been Burning All Night Long

The world has never seemed to quite be ready for iLoveMakonnen – a calm, level-headed rapper with off-the-charts emotional intelligence and a knack for party anthems. Back in 2014, Makonnen had a certified hit with “Tuesday,” complete with a Drake remix and a contract with his OVO imprint. But it wasn’t until 2021 that we got the artist’s first true LP, My Parade – a stripped down, casually catchy, profoundly introspective achievement. By splicing the bass drops and chittering hi hats of Atlanta trap with the patient fireside tempos of quiet storm R&B, Makonnen has made something perfectly of-the-moment – a pandemic classic full of vulnerability, paranoia, joy and intimacy. Who said parades had to be loud?

16. Helado Negro – Far In

The Light of a Sunrise on the First Morning of a Tropical Vacation

Just because Roberto Carlos Lange sings in a whisper doesn’t mean he can’t command your attention. On his seventh LP as Helado Negro, his deceptively quiet instrument is as agile as ever, shifting between finger-picked calypso ballads and sweaty disco hooks with the ease of a green thumb strolling between his veggie garden and beds of perennials. As a result, Far In won’t necessarily grab you by the ears at first. It further cements Lange’s status as one of our consummate “growers,” its melodic and textual depth revealing itself more with every listen, until before you know it, you’re surrounded by blossoms.

15. John Carroll Kirby – Cryptozoo: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The Light of a Pair of Red Eyes in the Forest

For his contributions to Solange’s A Seat at the Table and The Avalanches’ We Will Always Love You alone, pianist/producer/composer John Carroll Kirby deserves the benefit of the doubt. So while you might not think you’re in the mood to hear a new age/yacht rock score to a psychedelic animated movie about a zoo full of magical creatures, I’d recommend pressing play anyway. Far from a “weird for weird’s sake” exercise, Cryptozoo is a restorative balm of laid-back experimentation, where beds of synths and acoustic guitars reverberate reassuringly, leaving us more open to the wonders of a breathy pan flute solo that we ever could have imagined.

14. Mustafa – When Smoke Rises

The Light of a Candle on a Coffee Shop Table, Blurred By Tears

While Toronto natives Drake and The Weeknd chose superstardom over self-reflection years ago, the template they laid for woozy, deep dives into an artist’s damaged psyche is still in the water up there. On his debut LP, singer/songwriter Mustafa infuses the long blue winters of his hometown into a heart-wrenchingly gorgeous folk eulogy for fallen friends and eroded innocences. “I didn’t want to risk it all / Oh I know what’s at stake / But you made yourself special / I wanna throw myself away for you,” he sings over plaintive Leonard Cohen finger picking – grief and rage and love freezing together as grey clouds cover the stars.

13. Lil Nas X – Montero

The Light from a Single Sparkler Setting Off the Entire Pack

“Funny how you said it was the end / Then I went and did it again,” boasts Lil Nas X on his debut LP. The guy has a right to feel chuffed. After all the reactionary panic over his 2019 country-rap phenomenon “Old Town Road” – including Billboard pulling it off the country charts – the man born Montero Lamar Hill hasn’t just proven he’s more than a one-hit wonder. He’s made an entire album of potential chart-toppers, while staying true to himself and his eclectic muse. Montero has gleefully egotistical rap bangers, heartsick rainy-day ballads, “Hey Ya”-indebted acoustic thumps, and frank explorations of what it’s like to be a cultural icon on this beautiful, burning planet.

12. Maxo Kream – Weight of the World

The Light That Flared in Atlas’s Eyes As He Held Up the Heavens

Maxo Kream doesn’t need choruses, or hypnotically soulful beats, or guest stars with sparkling personalities. To be clear, the Houston rapper is gifted with all of those things on his third studio album. But his stories are so vivid, introspective, and casually devastating that it’s tough to focus on anything else. Weight of the World finds Maxo wrestling with all kinds of heaviness – survivor’s guilt for old friends still striving; raw grief from the March 2020 shooting death of his younger brother; the extra responsibility he feels toward his niece in the aftermath. It’s not only remarkable that the 31-year-old is willing to tackle such harrowing subjects, but he does it without surrendering to the darkness, spiking transparency with cleverness to create an effect that feels a lot like hope.

11. Shannon Lay – Geist

The Light We Keep On at Night Because It Helps Us Sleep

“You’re on your own / But not alone.” When California singer/songwriter Shannon Lay serenades us with this couplet at the end of a song called “A Thread to Find,” the effect is a form of sonic therapy. Because not only does this proclamation of support help soothe our pandemic-warped nervous systems, but it also serves as a handy descriptor of what we’re hearing. For all of its reverberating lushness, Geist is a traditional folk album, with carefully plucked acoustic guitars and Lay’s lullaby tenor going largely unaccompanied. There are no drums at all here, which means every beautiful, searching note can initially feel like it’s rising into the ether on its own. But we’re there hearing it, so it’s not alone.

10. Brockhampton – Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine

The Light of Multiple Laser Beams Combining Into One Indestructible Megalaser

If Roadrunner is indeed the beginning of the end for the Houston emo-rap collective Brockhampton, as bandleader Kevin Abstract claims, then they’re going out with a clear understanding of what they’re good at. After taking an unprecedented two-year break between releases, the nine-member group (four rappers, three vocalists, two producers) reached a new level of clarity on its sixth LP, leaving its kitchen-sink mixtape approach behind in favor of a focused 12-track statement that somehow leaves no stone unturned. Everything that makes Brockhampton great is here – lovesick pop-rap, yell-along hip hop, heartfelt alt-rock hooks, fearlessly confessional lyricism – and it all flows in a way that feels preordained.

9. Danny L Harle – Harlecore

The Light of Neurons Firing In an Android’s Positronic Brain

As one of the more accessible members of the UK experimental electronic collective PC Music, Danny L Harle has a knack of pairing thumping molly-trip beats with clear-eyed declarations of feeling. On his long-awaited debut Harlecore, the artist puts this ability to the test over 13 tracks, “collaborating” with various versions of himself (referred to as DJ Danny, MC Boing, DJ Mayhem and DJ Ocean in the credits). The result is a perfectly sequenced journey through the mind of an electronic music visionary, touching on tender pop balladry, pitch-bended weirdo R&B, instrumental electronica, and relentlessly grinding industrial. All without losing sight of the humanity behind the machines: “I can see your heart’s been broken too / So just lay here, on a mountain, me and you.”

8. Doja Cat – Planet Her

The Light of a Newly Discovered Planet That Looks Like A Glowstick Necklace in the Sky

When Q-Tip rapped “Rap is not pop / If you call it that, then stop” over 30 years ago, he clearly wasn’t able to conceive of a record like Planet Her ever existing. And I don’t blame him. Because Doja Cat has accomplished something many brilliant emcees have never been able to pull off – a seamless fusion of bars-heavy hip hop, tender-hearted R&B, and chart-baiting pop hooks that doesn’t feel like a misguided record label ultimatum. This charismatic L.A. artist can rap and sing with equal flair, with lyrics that can be gut-bustingly hilarious, effervescently lovestruck, and convincingly heartbroken. Planet Her combines these versatile vocal performances with island-inflected club grooves, delivering every clever turn of phrase on the back of a warm, welcoming breeze.

7. Courtney Barnett – Things Take Time, Take Time

The Light From Your Best Friend’s Cigarette That They Forget to Smoke Because They’re Listening To You So Intently

On her steamroller of a debut (my #1 album of 2015), Courtney Barnett was a master at finding poignancy in mundane activities, like riding an elevator or going house hunting. Six years later, with mundanity at a premium, the Aussie slacker-rock visionary has shifted focus to the thing we often don’t admit to needing in our troubled, disconnected world – real companionship. “Sit beside me / Watch the world burn,” she proposes as her band rides a swirling roots-rock groove, finding the silver lining in the apocalypse like it’s a silver dollar on the street. Barnett hasn’t lost that trademark so-over-it sarcasm in her voice, but she’s deploying it in a gentler way, underlining the irony in how we focus on personal needs when humanity’s existence is at stake, while also admitting that she’s doing it too. All while writing riffs that feel like they’ve been keeping us company all our lives.

6. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee

The Light Of a July 4 Fireworks Display That Makes You Smile Even Though You’re Depressed About the State of the Country

“After spending the last five years writing about grief, I wanted our follow-up to be about joy,” said Michelle Zauner in the press materials for the third Japanese Breakfast LP. Jubilee meets this expectation and then some, with every track attempting to reach the masses with an irresistibly positive pop touch – like the weightless mariachi horns on “Paprika”; the soothing, Peter Gabriel-worshipping electronics of “Posing in Bondage”; the instant-classic disco bass line on “Be Sweet.” But this is also not quite a party album, as Zauner sings from the perspectives of a craven billionaire, a grieving relative, and a lonely heart in Indiana. So while it’s tempting to label this as an “indie rock legend gone pop,” the record’s true narrative isn’t so tidy. Because Jubilee‘s joy didn’t emerge from a vacuum. It came in the wake of pain, and is felt all the more intensely as a result.

5. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

The Light In an Electron Microscope that Lets Us See the Building Blocks of Life

On her fourth album, Little Simz is clearly in autobiographical mode. Not only is its title – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert – a clear statement about the artist’s personality, but it’s also an acronym of her birthname (“Simbi,” short for “Simbiatu”). Perhaps the British-Nigerian rapper felt the need to drop these hints, because the 19 tracks on Introvert don’t sound like stark, intimate confessionals. Simz partnered with producer Inflo to weave tapestries of lush, cinematic soul, greeting the ears with the reassuring tenderness of a Curtis Mayfield ballad. And the rapper proves to be just as bombastic as all the spy-flick horns and swelling strings, sharing her hopes, fears, traumas and inspirations like a timpanist establishing the low end so the symphony can soar. “Lived being angry my whole life / Like it’s part of my DNA,” she shares, grounding us distinctly in her reality. A few seconds later, a children’s chorus swoops in, and up we go.

4. Lucy Dacus – Home Video

The Light of a Slide Projector Warming Up in the Living Room

On her third album, this Virginia singer/songwriter doesn’t just tell stories. She writes letters – an offer to murder a partner’s dickhead father; an ode to a metalhead who wrote crappy poetry at Jesus Camp; an admission to a friend that she finds her boyfriend unworthy. Home Video deserves its title thanks to the specificity of these memories and the swells of emotion they can inspire in people who weren’t there. When Dacus gets less specific, it’s no less powerful – like the bridge on the gut-wrenching break-up ballad “Please Stay,” where the songwriter lists all the things her partner can do instead of leaving. “Quit your job / Cut your hair / Get a dog / Change your name,” it begins. It’s a stunning, honest admission of need, and a letter of encouragement to all who wonder if we’d be better off keeping our pesky feelings to ourselves.

3. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – Carnage

The Light That Guides Ships To Shore On Dark and Stormy Nights

Nick Cave’s singing voice is a marvel. After four decades of screaming, grunting and wailing as the frontman of The Birthday Party, the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, the 64-year-old Aussie legend is not only showing zero signs of strain, he’s exploring the upper register of his instrument, with riveting results. On Carnage, Cave teams up with trusted partner Warren Ellis to surround his voice with soft, rippling synthesizers, as he sings about deep rivers, lavender fields and kingdoms in the sky – the grief from his son’s passing in 2015 audible in every lyric about god and the afterlife. Yet despite the state of the world and his own personal burdens, Cave ends Carnage with a shaft of light through the clouds, a line repeated over and over again, with the kind of fervency that could convert a nonbeliever: “This morning is amazing / And so are you.”

2. Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood

The Light Next To Thomas Edison’s Work Bench

When getting good at Guitar Hero 2 wasn’t enough for a young Yasmin Williams, she picked up an acoustic guitar and started experimenting with it. She laid it face up on her lap, tuned the strings in a harmonic structure that sounded right to her, and started playing it like a keyboard. On her second album of instrumental folk, this distinctive approach is apparent in the way her fingers glide across the frets, the resulting notes flowing and clustering together like streams feeding the ocean. As she translates this tablature of the mind to us on tape, we’re presented with utterly unique compositions full of fascinating harmonic shapes, punctuated by percussive slaps of wood and the refreshing spray of a squeaking string. If they ever come out with Guitar Hero Unplugged, any of these songs would make it incredibly hard to beat.

1. Lingua Ignota – Sinner Get Ready

The Light from an MRI of Eve’s Brain At the Moment She Saw the Tree of Knowledge

Sinner Get Ready, the fourth album from the brimstone-spewing one-woman powerhouse Lingua Ignota, is categorized in iTunes as “Rock.” That’s not accurate, but I get it. What the hell else would you call an album that trembles with the conviction of gospel, soothes with the rustic sounds of Appalachian folk, and terrifies with sudden blasts of noise-metal? What singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist Kristen Hayter has done here is some kind of righteous, cathartic miracle – long, patient songs of eerie majesty with lyrics that see the world through the eyes of fanatical Catholics, who plead to their Old Testament God to strike down the evildoers in their midst. And we’re not talking about people who skip church on Sunday – the “sinners” referenced in this album title are domestic abusers. A survivor herself, Hayter has described her creations as her way of getting “revenge” at her abusers – refusing to stay calm, while simultaneously turning pain into beauty. She cries out for divine murder on “I Who Bend the Tall Grasses,” screaming about golden scythes like a delirious preacher as a church organ hums in the shadows. And Hayter’s quieter moments are no less intense. “Fear is nothing when the path is righteous,” she softly intones over the skeletal piano notes of “The Perpetual Flame of Centralia,” baptizing us in the fires of determination, and outrage, and god-given creative genius.

Honorable Mentions: Aesop Rock & Blockhead – Garbology; Amyl & The Sniffers – Comfort To Me; Froglord – The Mystic Toad; Gatecreeper – An Unexpected Reality; Genghis Tron – Dream Weapon; Jonny Greenwood – The Power of the Dog; Iron Maiden – Senjutsu; Isaiah Rashad – The House Is Burning; Ka – A Martyr’s Reward; Aimee Mann – Queens of the Summer Hotel; Megan Thee Stallion – Something for Thee Hotties; The Mountain Goats – Dark In Here; Native Soul – Teenage Dreams; Queen Key – Your Highness 3; Sturgill Simpson – The Ballad of Dood & Juanita; Tune-Yards – Sketchy; Tyler the Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost