The Top 25 Songs of 2018

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I’m sure you’ve already read, and reread, my take on the Top 20 Albums of 2018. “Wow, what an excellent use of my time,” you mused. “I need more end-of-the-year lists from this random critic who can’t seem to get published anywhere but his own blog!”

Well, my friends, sometimes dreams do come true. Here are my 25 favorite songs of the year that was.

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25. Rico Nasty – “Countin’ Up”

Hearing this Brooklyn rapper carving her name in a 20-year-old Neptunes beat, you’d swear it – and everything else on earth – has been hers all along: “You can’t even handle a bitch like me / Make my own money and I buy my own weed.”

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24. Against All Logic – “Know You”

This effusive, crate-diving house jam from electro-experimentalist Nicolas Jaar uses a vintage soul sample to push us thrillingly, inexorably forward.

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23. Lucy Dacus – “Yours & Mine”

Lucy Dacus was touring in Europe when tragedy hit Ferguson, MO. So she poured her empathy for the protestors into this sweeping triumph of a song: “For those of you who told me I should stay indoors / Take care of you and yours.”

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22. Khruangbin – “Maria También”

Timeless strutting music from a trio of globetrotting surf-lounge-funk instrumentalists. What, you were just gonna walk?

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21. Teyana Taylor – “WTP”

A ballroom-inspired dance tour de force, complete with clips from Paris Is Burning, “WTP” is a deliriously satisfying blast of self-confidence. “Save your tears honey,” advises guest emcee Mykki Blanco. “You’re a motherfucking diva!”

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20. Young Fathers – “Lord”

A falsetto gospel chorus greets us, and then falls away. By the time it comes back, buoyed by atmospheric piano and booming synth bass, we’re believers.

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19. Neko Case – “Curse of the I-5 Corridor”

Nostalgia has been weaponized by assholes, so it’s a joy to hear Neko Case make it great again with this spine-tingling, 7-minute epic about her early days on the road.

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18. Mariah Carey – “With You”

Our greatest pop-R&B singer casually defends her crown on this fantastic ballad – yet another timeless, hook-laden, slow-dance classic to add to the pile.

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17. Swamp Dogg – “I’m Coming with Lovin’ On My Mind”

Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. It makes life harder, full stop. And over some gorgeous ’80s R&B synths, Swamp Dogg makes us feel that pain of separation, as he pleads with his love to be there when he returns. Never before has a song with multiple references to “69” made me cry.

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16. Esperanza Spalding – “To Tide Us Over”

Picks scrape on strings as a singer struggles to form words, until they finally flow: “Mmmmmmaybe your tongue’s a ruddy seafloor / Silent in its night.” And then, we’re floating – in the strange, therapeutic waters of Esperanza Spalding’s mind.

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15. Robyn – “Between the Lines”

When you love somebody, mundane text messages feel like firework emojis. Even when you’re not saying anything together, you’re saying everything. Over a pulsing, rapturous ’90s club beat, Robyn captures this feeling to a tee: “When we get silent / We’re making diamonds.”

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14. Kero Kero Bonito – “Dear Future Self”

By pairing a stunning sunshine pop chord progression with melancholy lyrics about getting older, this eclectic London trio proves they’re very much in tune with their inner Brian Wilson.

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13. Vince Staples – “Fun!”

Here is Vince Staples at his slipperiest, his powerful, charismatic flow making stark street stories flow like Top 40 candy. And producer Kenny Beats gives him a beat to match, synth congas bending up and down like zero-gravity raindrops.

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12. Rhye – “Taste”

Canadian singer Milosh explores the eroticism of trust on his latest triumph of serpentine Sade-worship. “I feel your love / I feel your faithful ways,” he revels, plucking our heart strings in pizzicato.

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11. Natalie Prass – “Short Court Style”

This Virginia singer/songwriter is inspired as much by Karen Carpenter as Janet Jackson on this easy-breezy jaunt of a single, her soft-rock croon fitting the ’80s R&B groove like a glove.

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10. Joey Purp – “Elastic”

All Joey Purp needed to make a stellar Chicago house rumpshaker was a couple bass notes, some synth hand claps and the occasional front desk bell. And he raps like he knows it – loose, confident, and electric.

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9. Brockhampton – “1997 Diana”

Last May, the exuberant hip-hop collective Brockhampton fired rapper Ameer Vahn in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations. And then they put out a single that proved they’re better without that asshole – a raucous, infectious, baritone sax-driven bop.

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8. CupcakKe – “Cartoons”

When it comes to straight-up rapping, CupcakKe is on another level. On “Cartoons,” she challenges herself to cram as many animation references as possible into eight bars. It’s incredible: “I don’t look for n****s so fuck Waldo / Bitch I’m cocky like Johnny Bravo!”

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7. Kacey Musgraves – “High Horse”

“Oh I bet you think you’re John Wayne,” goes this effervescent disco track from a country singer on an absolute roll. Defenders of the way things used to be have never been eviscerated so neatly, or joyfully.

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6. Cardi B – “I Like It”

“They call me Cardi B / I run this shit like cardio.” After hearing the most satisfying bass drop of the year, how could we argue?

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5. Frank Ocean – “Moon River”

I used to think “Moon River” was a trifle of a song, propped up by a legendary actor in a hit movie. The lyrics are meaningless! Then Frank Ocean sang it, harmonizing like a motherfucker over gentle, ringing guitar chords. I can’t stop crying.

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4. Sophie – “Immaterial”

Both hand-clap-driven dance-pop reverie and uplifting metaphysical thesis, “Immaterial” is a pure expression of freedom: “Just leave me alone now / I can’t be held down.”

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3. Noname – “Self”

This recording makes the Fender Rhodes sound like good news, like a long kiss, like maple syrup on your oatmeal. And Noname drops the verse of the year over it: “And y’all still thought a bitch couldn’t rap, huh?”

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2. Caroline Rose – “Money”

The rock song of the year – a snarling, chugging, invigorating screed about greed. Wouldn’t you know it, we’re left wanting more.

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1. Janelle Monaé – “Make Me Feel” 

When Prince died, it felt impossible to do justice to his memory. Until Janelle Monaé fused funk and pop and lust and love into this interplanetary cocktail of truth.

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): 2 Chainz – “Proud”; At the Gates – “To Drink from the Night Itself”; Courtney Barnett – “Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Self Confidence”; CupcakKe – “Crayons”; Denzel Curry – “Super Saiyan Superman”; Lucy Dacus – “Night Shift”; Drake – “Nice for What”; Flatbush Zombies (feat. Portugal. The Man) – “Crown”; Future – “Racks Blue”; Jonny Greenwood – “House of Woodcock”; Jeremih & Ty Dolla $ign – “The Light”; Juice WRLD – “Lucid Dreams”; Khalid & Swae Lee – “The Ways”; Daniel Knox – “Cut from the Belly”; Lil Wayne – “Uproar”; Kacey Musgraves – “Slow Burn”; Kacey Musgraves – “Rainbow”; Ness Nite – “Flex On Me”; Open Mike Eagle – “Relatable (peak OME)”; Parquet Courts – “Tenderness”; Kim Petras – “Heart to Break”; Pusha-T – “If You Know You Know”; Robyn – “Beach2k20”; Caroline Rose – “Bikini”; Caroline Rose – “Soul No. 5”; Screaming Females – “Fantasy Lens”; Sofi Tukker – “Batshit”; Waxahatchee – “Singer’s No Star”; Young Thug (feat. Elton John) – “High”

The Top 20 Albums of 2018

The term “escapist” is usually applied to story-based art forms – like a 1,000-page high-fantasy novel or a blockbuster IMAX adventure. But in 2018, music was my escape hatch. The one thing every album on this list had in common was that it drew me into its unique sonic universe. Whether it was satirical hip-hop, sci-fi death metal, or romantic pop-country, I floated through it, gobsmacked by melody, moved by poetry. It was indescribably comforting to know that, no matter what atrocity was leading the news that day, the play button was an arm’s reach away.

https_images.genius.com469bb24dc0e092bff3f3003c8229ecf3.1000x1000x120. Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar

This Scottish-by-way-of-Africa trio was one of 2018’s most successful genre omnivores, fusing lush, electronic R&B with bursts of twitchy grime and the occasional harmony-drenched sunshower. The third Fathers record, Cocoa Sugar, finds the group filtering its legion of influences through the framework of slow-build dance music, layering one subtle element on top of another in a determined attempt to reach that jumping-up-and-down moment of transcendence. “Border Girl” begins with three squelching bass notes and ends up with what might as well be 1,000 voices, beckoning for miracles. On “Lord,” the pristine first single, a falsetto gospel chorus greets us, only to drop out, leaving behind a unstable atmosphere of wispy piano, heavy bass drops, and chilly sentiments like “If wishes were horses / Then beggars would ride.” When the chorus makes its glorious return, we can almost feel the mane in our hands, and the wild breeze in our faces.

a3297919058_1019. Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel

After the runaway success of her 2015 debut, Courtney Barnett went through an extended bout of writer’s block. She tried writing only on a typewriter. She took a break to make a fun, freewheeling album with Kurt Vile. It was all worth it. Tell Me How You Really Feel is a darker, more conflicted work, a floodlight shining on a noisy world, overflowing with fake friends and sexist trolls. Everything you need to know about the album’s emotional grey areas is built into the first song title, “Hopefulessness.” Featuring a string tuning down, a tea kettle screeching, and lines like “It’s okay to have a bad day,” it’s not forthcoming with easy answers. The rest of the album is equally honest, but also sneakily catchy. Especially “Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence,” which boasts a delightful power-pop crunch that belies its title. When Barnett and her band launch into the chorus, it’s like they’re simultaneously having one of the most depressing and freeing adult realizations – everybody is making it up as they go along. “I don’t know anything!” they harmonize. If certain powerful men were strong enough to admit this, the world would be an unrecognizably better place.

220px-Teyana_Taylor_KTSE_Cover_Art18. Teyana Taylor – KTSE

Teyana Taylor knows a thing or two about staying positive. Even though she signed to Pharrell’s label way back in 2007, her debut album didn’t drop until 2014. And by the time LP2 finally arrived this summer, it had zero chance of untainted publicity, thanks to the public self-immolation of its executive producer, Kanye West. Which is a goddamn shame, because KTSE packs enough joy into its 23 minutes to counteract even the heaviest dose of dragon energy. The title stands for “Keep That Same Energy,” and Taylor’s commitment to the mantra is something to behold. Her voice is tinged with reflective wisdom. It’s a confluence of talent and life experience, a direct ancestor of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. West provides little more than spartan soul samples on most of these tracks, and it’s all Taylor needs. Until “WTP,” that is. A ballroom-inspired ’90s dance tour de force, complete with clips from Paris Is Burning, “WTP” closes this record with a deliriously satisfying blast of self-confidence. “Save your tears honey,” advises guest emcee Mykki Blanco. “You’re a motherfucking diva!”

https_images.genius.comd556b68ca7ed856d1efd2badd494260a.1000x1000x117. Jean Grae & Quelle Chris – Everything’s Fine

Study after study has shown that life in America is stressful AF. And the imaginative indie rappers Jean Grae and Quelle Chris have taken a deep dive into the causes of this collective anxiety, and our continuing addiction to baseless claims that it’s all gonna be okay. They bring in authoritative-sounding comedians like Nick Offerman and John Hodgman to repeat the album title over soothing elevator music, giving the record its own brand of insidious, hilarious propaganda. As a result, Everything’s Fine is that rare rap album where the skits are essential, because they put these formidable emcees on the offensive. Grae & Chris rap with fire and irony about police violence and lost childhoods, exposing the lie of the album title over hazy, atmospheric production. Grae is especially dynamic, her verses an encyclopedic whirlwind, her shit-talk positively elegant: “Fire, brimstone, magma, lava, Dylan, molten granite, dollars, kimchee / Longer it sits, stronger the MC.” On the next track, Offerman tries to make us forget. “Why would you have to do anything about issues that don’t directly affect you?” he purrs. This record is a herculean battle between truth and comfort; nutrition and junk. It’s like watching the news, if pundits were poets.

https_images.genius.com408f28c254a33a5d96647336a9e972cd.622x622x116. Tierra Whack – Whack World

Sometimes, limitations are an artist’s best friend. Like John Lennon having to belt out “Twist and Shout” with a hell of a cold, and only 15 minutes of studio time left to do it. 15 minutes also happens to be the running time of Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack’s debut album – that’s 15 tracks, at precisely one minute a piece. I call Whack a rapper, but Whack World is so much more than a rap album. Within these cozy confines, she bounces from moody trap to sunshine pop, introspective R&B balladry and a full-on country twang. She sings about board games and dead pets, and raps with feeling about how she loves to see her mother laugh. Every transition feels effortless. And the same can be said about Whack World’s accompanying video, which depicts the artist’s ideas with the technicolor verve they deserve – imagine if Lemonade was shot in Pee Wee’s Playhouse. This album is a complete artistic statement; a celebration of an independent spirit, alive with humor and humanity. And it’s over in the time it takes to boil an egg. “Music is in my Billie genes,” she boasts. It’s the only explanation for how she could have pulled this off.

https_images.genius.comaee8d20d98f75c9f52ae97a5ebd8637c.1000x1000x115. Vince Staples – FM!

Exposing the illusion of California as a sun-dappled promised land has been a go-to writerly pursuit since Steinbeck was in his prime. But it’s hard to think of any artist who has broken this spell with the muscular precision of Long Beach rapper Vince Staples. On his perpetual motion machine of a third record, Staples plays with our expectations like an especially sly feline. Track one is called “Feels Like Summer,” and it outlines a different kind of heat wave, an ever-present danger that makes the artist sweat all year round. “Cold weather won’t stop no gunner / Wrong hat, wrong day, I’ll kill my brother,” Staples raps. (His everyday challenges would make the Beach Boys shit their shorts.) The genius of FM! is how Staples balances these grim street narratives with infectious energy. Whether he’s rapping about the sun coming out or the guns coming out, his flow is the great equalizer, delivering this stark street poetry with exhilarating percussive force, the perfect foil for the gritty minimalism of producer Kenny Beats. It’s the 2018 equivalent of Ice Cube’s “It Was A Good Day,” except the good times rarely last for a whole couplet, let alone 24 hours. When Staples raps, “Broad day, I’m ’round your way / SK, come out, let’s play,” it almost feels like kid on summer break, until we learn that an SK is a Soviet semiautomatic weapon. It’d be enough to make your head shake, if it wasn’t already bobbing like crazy.

https_images.genius.com24c0326732e628586966e81c5ca9ea27.700x700x114. Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology

It all started with a pun. UK metalheads Matt Moss and Kev Pearson couldn’t believe that out of all the sludge metal bands with animal obsessions, none had connected “sludge” with “slug.” So in 2012, Slugdge was born, complete with its own crackpot theological backstory, centered on a vengeful, slimeridden, interdimensional god named Mollusca. After years of wriggling its way through the metal underground, Moss and Pearson’s band truly burst from the soil in 2018, with the release of its fourth LP, Esoteric Malacology. The Lovecraftian mythology and Pythonian absurdity have reached delirious new heights – “The walls shall liquify beneath / The force of Rhaexorog’s harrowing screams.” And the duo has developed its own particular brand of pummeling prog-metal, proving that very heavy music can also be clear and accessible, without upsetting too many die-hards. The riffs writhe like tentacles, undulating to their own arcane rhythms as they rise to blot out the sun. Clean, worshipful harmonies sit shoulder to shoulder with low demonic growls. When it all comes together, like on the relentless track “Crop Killer,” Slugdge is metal at its most ridiculously fun – painstakingly crafted compositions played with whizbang ability, and delivered with utter dedication to a bonkers sci-fi narrative based on a tortured pun. All. Hail. Mollusca.

https_images.genius.com2a57c6ea1f460c4a71f44de202ea1330.620x620x113. Neko Case – Hell-On

“I’m an agent of the natural world,” proclaims Neko Case on her self-produced sixth LP. The singer/songwriter has long favored themes of mother earth as a sleeping giant; her discography is full of tornadoes and floods, pent-up cyclones and hovering bees. But Case has never written as caustically about our impending doom as she does here. “Don’t you tell me I didn’t warn you,” she sings omnisciently over the gloomy waltz of the title track. In fact, Hell-On finds the artist so appalled by our collective eco-ignorance that she goes full Howard Zinn, telling stories about groups that tend to be ignored by the conquering generals who write our history books – extinct lions, female sailors, traumatized children. If Case wasn’t such a skilled producer, all of this foreboding might make for a tough sit. But this is her lushest album yet, with each track possessing some kind of fulfilling sonic surprise. Like the ’60s pop bounce of “Bad Luck.” Or the swelling wave of a chorus that crashes over “Winnie”: “We were warriors!” The seven-minute “Curse of the I-5 Corridor” is a stone-cold spine-tingler, pairing the artist’s touching remembrances of her first days on the road with duet partner Mark Lanegan’s reassuringly scratchy basso. If we’re all going down with the ship, then what better time to sing?

Lucy Dacus_ Historian12. Lucy Dacus – Historian

Lucy Dacus songs unfold like realizations. Where pop artists tend to prefer briskly discovered a-ha moments, this Virginia singer/songwriter explores the periphery and then works her way in. So by the time we realize that addictions can be interpersonal, or that our homeland isn’t as homey as we hoped, or that death is coldly, poignantly final, the whole experience has been enriched by context, the volume rising steadily like the tide. Historian is Dacus’s first LP with Matador Records, who won a very public label war for her services. All signs point to the execs staying out of her way. Otherwise, the fantastic chorus from the opening track “Night Shift” would’ve been burned off within 30 seconds. Instead, Dacus spends more than three minutes painting a picture of a relationship in ruins, including an image of a man staring at his feet, waiting for his guilt to be lifted, that works pretty well as a metaphor for what’s wrong with the world. Then, only when we understand, does it happen. The chord progression changes; the band drops out; and Dacus sings, “You’ve got a nine to five / So I’ll take the night shift.” It’s more than a cool breakup line. It’s a rejection of everyday drudgery, and Dacus sings it more confidently each time, as if she’s realizing in the moment that she deserves better. Historian is full of songs like these. Ideas that develop in steady crescendo, until they blossom as breakthroughs – bright, and loud, and true.

Love-loss--and-autotune-by-Swamp-Dogg11. Swamp Dogg – Love, Loss and Auto-Tune

By the time an artist gets around to releasing their 22nd album, the best we can usually expect is a respectable return to form under the guidance of a savvy producer – a Time Out of Mind or American Recordings. But since he began dropping eccentric cult R&B records under the name Swamp Dogg in 1970, Jerry Williams Jr. has done anything but what we’d expect. His 22nd album is absolutely influenced by his producers, but its similarities to other late-career triumphs ends there. True to its title, Love, Loss and Auto-Tune layers Williams’s beautifully weathered tenor in pitch-correcting robotics. But it’s not like his voice needs help, or that the material requires some kind of chilly remove. Like Eno with a synthesizer, this is just a boundary-pusher exploring new frontiers. Whether he’s crooning a Nat King Cole standard, begging his love to wait up for him so they can sip “Dom Perignon ’69,” or busting out a spoken word screed about our fucked-up economy, the effect is absolutely unique – and stop-you-in-your-tracks emotional. This isn’t some novelty record. The love swells. The loss hurts. And the Auto-Tune elevates it all, more then any dumb guitar solo could.

https_images.genius.comf9fec989d8a03a8204fd4ff1189d2dd5.1000x1000x110. Sophie – Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides

When the Scottish dance-pop enigma Sophie released a collection of singles in 2015, she gave it the perfect title – PRODUCT. Because this DJ and producer has made her mark by turning lifeless hitmaking technology against itself, resulting in shamelessly mechanical, outrageously plastic earworms. This astounding trademark sound is still evident on her proper studio debut, Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, but this time, her mission is a therapeutic one. It might be twisted and distorted beyond recognition, but Sophie begins this album by featuring her own singing voice for the first time, on a gentle, spectral ballad called “It’s Okay To Cry.” “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” she shares. “But I think your inside is your best side.” Then there’s “Immaterial,” a hand-clap-driven pop reverie that presents our metaphysical selves as our true selves, resulting in a pure expression of freedom. “Without my legs or my hair / Without my genes or my blood / With no name and with no type of story / Where do I live?” Throw in some classic Sophie anti-pop – “Faceshopping” sounds like a Casio being shoved down a garbage disposal, stray pieces skittering across the linoleum – and you’ve got an album unlike any other, that celebrates how each of us is unlike any other.

https_images.genius.comce9271c9c0f795669e05dfd21bf39cdd.1000x1000x19. Caroline Rose – Loner

Is it possible for an artist to be low-key ambitious? To explore all kinds of fertile new ground without being all in-your-face about it? Caroline Rose’s second album leads me to believe so. Loner finds the former Americana singer/songwriter leaving that down-home strumminess in the dust, using a phalanx of synth patches and a chameleonic singing voice to hearken back to ’60s garage rock, ’70s punk and ’90s trip hop. Along with co-producer Paul Butler, Rose manages to corral all of this mood- and genre-hopping into a small-group setting. Other than the keyboards, the instrumentation pretty much doesn’t change. All the hard work is left to the songs and players. And rightfully so. Loner should be, on paper, a fairly depressing record. Narrators sit alone at diner counters, and lose their sense of wonder in a homogenized world. But Rose approaches every song with a sardonic grin. She’s not hopeless; she’s bemused. And she’s at her absolute best when taking on the satirical role of a crass, Randy Newman-style huckster: “We’re gonna put you in the movies and on TV / All you’ve gotta do is put on this little bikini!” As the guitars churn and the synths rain down, the last thing we’re thinking about is the genre. We’re too busy being electrified.

https_images.genius.com8b54877e9543c6577be5d6e963e02452.750x750x18. Denzel Curry – Ta13oo

There’s a throughline connecting the rise of grunge in the ’90s, nü metal in the ’00s and Soundcloud rap in the ’10s – new generations flocking to the sound of young men venting. In all three cases, this has resulted in a lot of entitled, peacocking garbage. But with the release of Florida rapper Denzel Curry’s second LP, Soundcloud rap may have found its ideal torchbearer. Ta13oo features many of the building blocks of this much-derided/beloved genre. Confessional lyrics flow like open veins. Dark, electronic beats swoosh past like rusted throwing stars. A working knowledge of Nirvana, Korn and Stephen King is made clear. But Curry elevates the formula beyond your typical teen angst, by just writing and rapping his ass off. “Sky is the limit / I could die any minute / Got my mind in a skillet / Suicide not the mission,” he spits over the light, strolling synths of “Black Balloons,” beautifully encapsulating the painful uncertainties and careening energies of youth. He begins the record by pledging to always be there for a partner who suffered childhood abuse. He uses Kurt Cobain’s suicide as a cipher for materialism. He references Chowder and Jimmy Neutron and South Park and Black Sabbath. He reaches rap nirvana, over and over again.

https_images.genius.com22ebcc3f86cf57b0438e81d03b492955.1000x1000x17. CupcakKe – Ephorize

When a brilliant, charismatic rapper is just starting to blow up, there are few things more exciting for a listener – being there for that moment, pressing play on the album that could put them on the short list for Best Rapper Alive. Which is just what Ephorize has done for CupcakKe. The third LP from this prolific, seemingly unstoppable Chicago rapper was a significant leap forward from 2017’s excellent Queen Elizabitch – pairing her sharply honed lyricism and whitewater-rapids flow with club-ready production that sends all the positive vibes into the stratosphere. The artist is most famous for explicit, sex-positive bops, and she delivers one of her greatest here with the Statue of Liberty-referencing “Duck Duck Goose.” But Ephorize is equally defined by themes of personal growth and celebratory wokeness. “Most people already skipped this song cause it ain’t about sex and killin’,” she raps on “Self Interview,” a fearless recitation of her anxieties that ends with a vow to be true to herself. When this inward empathy explodes outward, CupcakKe is in rarefied air. “Boy on boy / girl on girl / Like who the fuck you like / Fuck the world!” she proclaims over the sax-laden dancehall groove of “Crayons.” It’s like we’re riding a rainbow rollercoaster, double guns drawn, the Best Rapper Alive at the controls.

DirtyComputer6. Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer

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 an utterly confusing dystopian sci-fi premise. Until Dirty Computer, that is. Monáe’s third LP is technically a concept album. But for the first time in her discography, it doesn’t really matter. The songwriting reckons with real life. In this world. In 2018. “I’m not America’s nightmare / I’m the American dream,” Monáe declares over the confident ’80s pop 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’s the most politically present, and openly romantic, she’s ever been – and the melodies bubble up and embrace us like they always have. “Pynk” turns an Aerosmith sample into a test tube of life-sustaining sunshine. “Screwed” boasts one of the snappiest guitar riffs of the year. And “Make Me Feel” finds Monáe doing justice to Prince’s memory by fusing funk and pop and lust and love into an interplanetary cocktail of truth. What a perfect time for her to shake things up, and give us all the feels.

https_images.genius.com639af7c3779547263444a0acdd2ffcde.1000x1000x15. Noname – Room 25

As we’ve learned the hard way in this country, the people who loudly brag about how strong and smart they are tend to be the weakest and stupidest of the bunch. On her patient, radiant second album, the Chicago rapper Noname calmly delivers verses about struggling to find yourself, the frustrating Venn diagram of sex and love, and the frightening impermanence of existence. It’s powerful because it’s not trying to sound powerful. Featuring live musicians playing low-lit, after-hours R&B vamps, Room 25 has a restorative quality. It’s hot soup on a cold day. When Noname admits “Everybody think they know me / Don’t nobody really know me,” producer Phoelix supports her with a synth patch that sounds like a music box – the sound of the adolescence she’s leaving behind. As she ponders the human condition on “Don’t Forget About Me,” the gentle snare hits and burbling organ are a balm. And on the opening “Self,” where she proves that quiet confidence can shatter foundations, we get an absolute motherfucker of a Fender Rhodes soul groove. It sounds like good news, like a long kiss, like maple syrup on your oatmeal. And Noname drops the verse of the year over it, hurling a pie in the face of rap’s patriarchal gatekeepers: “My pussy teaching ninth-grade English / My pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism / In conversation with a marginal system in love with Jesus / And y’all still thought a bitch couldn’t rap, huh?”

a3868691890_164. Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo

Khruangbin makes dreamy, contemplative funk instrumentals. But that description doesn’t do them justice. I’m not nearly cultured enough to properly convey what this Houston trio’s second album sounds like. It bears more passport stamps then every record on this list combined, 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. The end result sounds like Ennio Morricone recording for Stax. I could listen to it on repeat. 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!”

b266198ecaf03cafb955bee91d331fa75e2398ad3. Esperanza Spalding – 12 Little Spells

“There’s a vibrational current between every fingertip and the unseen,” declares Esperanza Spalding on 12 Little Spells. In the context of the soundscapes she builds around it, this line feels like incontrovertible truth. Because the artist we could once describe as a “Grammy-winning jazz composer, singer and bassist” has reached heights of sonic expression that transcend genre. Or song structure. Or the physical plane. Only in this rarefied air could she take on this album’s lofty and amorphous challenge – sing a dozen songs about physical reactions to art, and transfer her own feelings to listeners. Spalding’s arrangements are largely percussionless, freeing up her bass lines to bob and weave around our expectations – even the low end is rising skyward. Resulting in music that makes us feel like that batty old man in Mary Poppins, floating to the ceiling in his pajamas, laughing at the wonder of it all. What’s even more amazing is that, at its heart, this is a pop album, meant to connect with as many of us as possible. Few things stuck in my brain in 2018 like the gentle, swaying funk of “Thang.” “‘Till the Next Full” evokes Hejira-era Joni Mitchell with its swirling, nocturnal acoustics. The title track swells like a old movie score, toeing the edge of dissonance but always choosing beauty. Making us feel the way the artist must have felt – entranced and inspired, our goosebumps rising like voices.

RobynHoney2. Robyn – Honey

Nobody used dance music as a weapon of resilience like Robyn did in the first decade of a scary new millennium. The Swedish singer, songwriter and producer wielded bass drum eighth notes like emotional armor, resisting despair’s powerful undertow, bravely choosing to dance on her own. But in the eight years since her absolutely essential Body Talk albums turned our insecurities into ecstasies, a lot happened in this artist’s life. Relationships ended. A close friend and collaborator passed away. And the world kept spinning ever more out of control. So it shouldn’t be a total shock that Robyn has left her suit of armor hanging on the castle walls. On Honey, the pain of the past comes flooding in, exposing universal human weak spots – nostalgia, grief, love. Instead of being repelled by otherworldly pop hooks, their power is captured, and harnessed for good. “Because it’s in the music / Yeah, we’re dancing to it / I’m right back in that moment / And it makes me want to cry,” she sings, in perhaps the clearest example of how her perspective has evolved since 2010. But the track’s rolling, playful bass line and frolicking synth strings communicate the therapeutic nature of her words. Robyn pulls off this trick all over Honey, processing these emotions through the language of adventurous dance-pop, without blunting their impact. It’s a genius songwriter at work. And when she takes a break from soul-searching, we get the avant-garde banger “Beach2k20,” an entrancing ’90s dance concoction during which Robyn has a muffled conversation with herself arranging a beach trip. The only words that bubble completely up to the surface are “Let’s go party!” You’d think nine tracks wouldn’t feel like enough after an eight-year absence. It’s as generous as music gets.

Golden-hour-Kacey-Musgraves1. Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour

“Oh what a world / Don’t wanna leave / There’s all kinds of magic / It’s hard to believe,” sings Kacey Musgraves, on one of the many standout love songs that form the spine of her flawless third album, Golden Hour. For all its grandiosity, it never feels the least bit trite. Because this songwriter has no time for sunsets. The “magic” she feels is like seeing the Aurora Borealis. “These are real things,” she marvels. Golden Hour is largely about these “real things.” In fact, its songwriting is so focused, it makes me realize how so many of our idioms for romance have to do with not seeing straight. Clichéd love makes us “starry-eyed.” It “knocks us off our feet.” It makes us “crazy about” someone. Musgraves approaches the subject from a variety of angles, from the lovely ache of missing someone to the frightening joy of trusting them. And her vision never blurs. “I used to be scared of the wilderness, of the dark,” she sings. “But not anymore.” This clarity is also evident in Golden Hour’s production. It’s based in the honeyed pop-country gloss that defined her first two records, but takes some exhilarating liberties. “High Horse” is a swirling disco anthem. “Oh What a World” features a chorus of robotic voices. “Slow Burn” introduces a string motif that waxes and wanes like something off of Beck’s Sea Change album. But for all these feats of songcraft, the moment that moved me the most was as simple as can be. The band drops away, and it’s just Musgraves, at her piano, telling her love the one thing we all want to hear: “It’ll all be alright.”

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Against All Logic – 2012-2017; At the Gates – To Drink from the Night Itself; Behemoth – I Loved You at Your Darkest; Brockhampton – IridescenceCardi B – Invasion of Privacy; Mariah Carey – Caution; City Girls – Period; Cupcakke – Eden; Earl Sweatshirt – Some Rap Songs; Flatbush Zombies – Vacation In Hell; Future – Beast Mode 2; JPEGMAFIA – Veteran; Jonny Greenwood – Phantom Thread; Hermit and the Recluse – Orpheus vs. The Sirens; Horrendous – Idol; Jeremih & Ty Dolla $ign – Mih-Ty; Kero Kero Bonito – Time ‘n’ Place; Lil Wayne – Tha Carter V; Mammoth Grinder – Cosmic Crypt; Parquet Courts – Wide Awake!; Pistol Annies – Interstate Gospel; Natalie Prass – The Future and the Past; Pusha-T – Daytona; Rhye – Blood; Rico Nasty – Nasty; Saba – Care for Me; Screaming Females – All At Once; Sofi Tukker – Treehouse; Anna St. Louis – If Only There Was a River; Tenacious D – Post-Apocalypto; Kurt Vile – Bottle It In

In Defense of Long-Ass Albums

A few weeks ago, the excellent Stereogum writer Tom Breihan wrote a rave review of the new Father John Misty album, effectively defining the the verbose singer/songwriter’s infuriating kind of talent. But toward the end, in an attempt to temper his hyperbole, Breihan leaned on a classic cliché: “It’s too long; no album needs to be this long.”

This is just not true. Sometimes an artist has a lot they want to say, and sometimes that’s absolutely what makes an album great. Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life is 115 minutes long, because a genius at his peak was bursting with ideas. Pink Floyd’s The Wall is 80 minutes long, because Roger Waters had to work through all of his issues with his father, and mother, and British imperialism on tape. In February, Future released two really good albums in two weeks, and it was exciting because he was sharing so much – 34 tracks and 132 minutes of intoxicating, conflicted rap, with hooks bubbling like raw crude just beneath the surface.

So why the long-ass shade? I’ve got three explanations: 1) Navel-gazing rock star narratives are hard to resist; 2) Music critics don’t have a lot of time on their hands; and 3) The album is legitimately bad. Let’s break them down, shall we?

1. Navel-gazing rock star narratives are hard to resist

For an example of the first reason, I present 2016’s biggest commercial success – Drake’s Views. For years, this album was hyped as the rap superstar’s unstoppable power move. The ever-savvy Torontonian insisted on labeling 2015’s If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late as a mixtape, despite the fact that it was sold and marketed like an album. The message was clear – if you like this little appetizer, just wait for the smorgasbord to come. As a marketing strategy, it was really smart. But it was red meat for critics, who greeted the 82-minute Views with ocular-vein-straining eyerolls.

“Drake’s navel-gazing is starting to wear thin,” proclaimed The Daily Telegraph. Pitchfork called it “obnoxious,” The New York Times “dauntingly long.” It was a convenient narrative when talking about an egotistical pop star, especially when he’s spending more time rapping about himself than is considered acceptable to do so.

Those assessments are over the top, but I get it. Views is Drake’s least accessible work. But this is exactly why its length is an asset. Drake can get all of that curdled male bitterness off his chest, and there’s still room for the ambitious melodrama of “Keep the Family Close” and the insidiously catchy one-two punch of “Controlla” and “One Dance.” On a shorter album, these tracks might have been seen as outliers and shelved.

From an artist who could throw together 10 songs and generate just as much hype and profit, 82 minutes feels like an act of generosity to me. Clearly, I’m not the only one – Views hit a billion streams on Apple Music alone and topped the Billboard charts with the authority of Billy Ray Cyrus in the ’90s.

Now, on the heels of that success is More Life, Drake’s decidedly looser, more vibrant follow-up. The artist digs even deeper into the dancehall rhythms and patois that flew in the face of the dour narrative about Views, while also showing an affinity for the rapid breakbeats and raspy British accents of grime. He’s singing a lot more, and relinquishing the spotlight more than ever – grime artist Skepta gets a whole track to himself; Young Thug gets to steal the show on two tracks. All of this has something to do with the friendlier critical reception that More Life has received, but let’s not discount the narrative here. Drake has made pains once again to not use the word “album,” calling More Life a “playlist.” Gone is the grist for the “navel gazing” diss mill. We can openly love it without sounding like we’re supporting a dickhead.

2. Music critics don’t have a lot of time on their hands

Back in the day when I was reviewing CDs regularly (R.I.P. Rockpile Magazine), I didn’t jump at the chance to cover a really long one. I need to listen to something at least five times before I can write about it without bullshitting – that’s almost seven hours of listening to Drake bitch about how he can’t trust his friends anymore. And when you’ve got a day job because writing about music doesn’t pay for shit, that’s a significant percentage of your free time. I mean, Lenny Kaye was probably getting decent checks from Rolling Stone in 1972, but his review of the 68-minute Rolling Stones classic Exile On Main Street is spiked with weariness: “Individually the cuts seem to stand quite well. Only when they’re taken together, as a lump sum of four sides, is their impact blunted.” This is in a five-star review.

And I’m definitely not immune to listening fatigue. In 2004, I completely mailed in a review of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ fantastic Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. I loved this record. But I spent most of my word count complaining about long-ass albums in general: “Both ridiculous and oddly fascinating, double albums can capture the imagination, but they’re most likely to get hit by a bus.” (Mixed metaphors! Broad generalizations! Hyperbole! You do not have to be good at writing to get published, kids!)

After all those hours of listening, I’m guessing I just wanted to get the writing over with so I could get drunk with my wife and watch The Two Towers Special Edition DVD.

3. The album is legitimately bad.

For all of my proclivities for long-ass albums, sometimes the last thing you want from an artist is more. Like in 2006, when The Eagles released the 92-minute Long Road Out of Eden. I’ve always been rubbed the wrong way by these guys, and I’m a classic rock apologist. Eden just further cemented my prejudice – The Eagles were cynical hacks selling empty stories. Here’s Glenn Frey singing the eminently lazy, not-creepy-at-all “I Love to Watch a Woman Dance”:

I could go on, but I’ll let The Guardian‘s Jude Rogers sum things up: “The Eagles’ double-disc comeback propels musical smugness to previously inconceivable proportion.”

If you’re still here after this 1000-word dissertation, and you’re still not sold that the long-ass album gets a bad rap, may I suggest these expansive, generous examples. None of them needed an editor. None of them could get any “tighter.” All of them are great for ignoring critical and commercial expectations, and meeting them nonetheless.

Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
An album that begins by acknowledging that love is against the ropes, and has us all betting on it by the end.

 

Kate Bush – Before the Dawn (2016)
A grand cathartic journey through this reclusive artist’s incomparable oeuvre. It makes Frampton Comes Alive! feel like Sesame Street Live. Oh, to have been there.

 

Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Forever (1997)
So many of rap’s most talented artists, peaking together on tape, for almost two hours. I wish it was longer.

 

Pink Floyd – The Wall (1979)
This treatise against war, formal education and shitty parenting should be a bitter pill of anti-nostalgia. But Roger Waters’ knack for theater and David Gilmour’s lyrical, disco-influenced guitar make for one strange, glorious singalong.

 

Vince Staples – Summertime ’06 (2015)
This Long Beach rapper’s gripping, hour-long debut is the opposite of pretentious, full of nihilistic swagger and unvarnished beats. Proving just how wrong I was in 2004.

 

 

 

The Top 20 Albums of 2015

Ah, the holidays. A time for nailing giant socks to the wall. A time for singing about pudding. A time to reflect on the year in music. Here’s a list of the 20 audiodiscs that gave me the most earjoy in 2015.

TD2CH_album_cover 20. Boosie Badazz – Touch Down 2 Cause Hell 

Lil Boosie has always commanded our attention with the quavering intensity of his bars. But there’s something even more visceral happening on this, his sixth album, and first since being released from a five-year stint in a Louisiana jail. You best sit down before pressing play on “Intro – Get Em Boosie,” because it’s one minute and 16 seconds of severe passion, the sound of a rapper freeing a long-suffocated muse. There’s anger in there, and sadness, but the overarching feeling is triumph. Over 18 ensuing tracks, this feeling of grand catharsis rarely subsides, and what seemed like the typical branding moves – dropping the “Lil,” the chaotic promise of the album title – are revealed as truth. This is an inspired, determined, grown-azz man.

homepage_large.c73306d019. The Mountain Goats – Beat the Champ

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.

a1859956754_1018. Panopticon – Autumn Eternal

Few things are as metal as leaf-peeping. People come from miles away to watch the trees blaze with a million little deaths, their once-verdant finery destined to rot. At least, Austin Lunn thinks so. He’s the man behind every note of Autumn Eternal, a black metal showpiece that plays like a drive through peak foliage – at first, with the sights blurring by, it feels like everything’s on fire. Then you slow down and realize you’re surrounded by beauty. Panopticon’s sixth record loses the bluegrass elements that made its prior work so haunting, in favor of walls of guitars, organs, drums and screams that swirl with enchanting grace. The melodies unfurl slowly amidst the chaos, gorgeous reminders that nothing is so natural as death.

51GqlPejStL._SY300_17. Jessica Pratt – On Your Own Love Again

Jessica Pratt is the kind of enigmatic folksinger who sounds like she was meant to record alone, hurling complicated emotions into the void. Her phrasing is messy, her pronunciation odd – “can” is “keen”; “time” is “tam” – but in the psychedelic malaise of her second LP, these quirks sound less like grating affectations and more like the artist’s own personal language. The joys of her guitar playing, however, are clear as day. She interrupts gorgeous finger-picked cascades with staccato minor notes, playing with a narrative thrust that gives the record its bone density. When we hear that scratch of pick on acoustic, we’re trained to expect some diary-entry-type emoting. Pratt plays against that expectation beautifully, leaving just enough breadcrumbs to get us lost. (excerpt from my review in The Quietus2/11/15)

cover_2253201862015_r16. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls

Of all the fascinating moments from the 2009 Iron Maiden documentary Flight 666, nothing compared to the footage of a Brazilian fan who had just caught one of Nicko McBrain’s drumsticks. He stands awestruck, unaware of the camera, tears of gratitude streaming down his face. It’s a feeling I can relate to when listening to the band’s excellent new double-disc, because it shimmers with the commitment and energy of a band half its age. While never straying from that classic Maiden formula– dramatic intro, triumphant gallop, insanely catchy solo, repeat – The Book of Souls avoids nostalgia though the use of a panoramic lens.  The two best songs on the record are also the two longest songs in the entire Maiden catalog. “The Red & The Black” especially slays, its chorus a fist-pumping “whoa” that makes we wish I was in a stadium, expressing my gratitude loudly.

R-6768364-1426270272-2606.jpeg15. Bjork – Vulnicura

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, here is 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.

drake_albumcover-300x30014. Drake – If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late

Here is perhaps the most downplayed of 2015’s surprise album drops. Even though it was released like a traditional, for-purchase-only record, Drake has insisted that If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late is a mixtape, a mere prelude to his much-hyped and still-imminent Views From the 6. (Are the rap semantics making your head hurt too?) For whatever reason, the artist basically told us to think of this as a minor release. But after hearing the first five songs, that is impossible to do. It’s rap’s strongest opening stretch of the year, a beautifully sequenced malaise of ego, death and crew politics that is about 200% catchier than I’m making it sound. The Torontonian has become a master at delivering hooks, filling this record with the same airy confidence that made “0 to 100” one of last year’s best singles. “Energy” is a great song entirely because of the way he draws out those syllables – “Tryin to take a waaaaaave from a n***a!” If this is just a preview, then I am going to pee right now – don’t want to miss a second of the feature presentation.

1035x1035-a852ee70f2b3aba31d06a9f3_609x60913. Kacey Musgraves – Pageant Material

Country music has always understood how to wallow. Some of its finest moments have taken us down the whiskey-soaked alleys of Self-Loathing, USA. But I’m a bigger fan of the singers that return from the abyss and report on how they overcame it. Like Kacey Musgraves, whose filtered sunbeam of a second record sparkles with self awareness, jam packed with life lessons destined for cross-stitched kitchen wall hangings. It begins with a honey-sweet ode to the calming influence of marijuana, complete with strolling whistles, Dusty Springfield string swells, and a flamenco guitar solo. “It’s a fine time to let it all go,” she sings, the profoundly pleasant melody backing up her argument. Feel so lonely you could cry? Just cry already. You’ll feel better.

549_waxahatchee_ivytrip_2500px_sq-54bba7c022cb7d50f49076a72151daf0f3840630-s300-c8512. Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp

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.

screen-shot-2014-12-10-at-9-32-40-am_sq-2768c011b744709ef14c5eb2230eb19a61b0b895-s300-c8511. Matthew E. White – Fresh Blood

“Everybody knows that rock and roll is cold,” croons Matthew E. White on the most rock ‘n’ roll-indebted song he’s ever done – 12-bar blues structure, ooh-la-la chorus and all. And in the lush, lovestruck context of his second LP, the irony of that line cuts even deeper. Fresh Blood finds the artist continuing to scratch his Randy Newman itch, slathering his compositions in strings and woodwinds and vocal harmonies, his unique baritone standing out in spite of it all. The difference here is Cupid’s arrow, washing away any trace of sarcasm. We’re talking celestial metaphors for love at first sight, picnics under laden fruit trees, a refrain of “nobody in this world is better than us.” With such shamelessly gorgeous production behind him, White has the power to swoon.

a0925d371d-TCOTN-300x30010. Tribulation – The Children of the Night

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.”

Kurt_Vile-2015-Blieve_im_goin_down_art_hi-res-300x3009. Kurt Vile – B’lieve I’m Goin Down

There have been moments – caused by exhaustion, an intoxicant, or both – when I’ve become obsessed with the sound of a word I’ve heard a million times before. “Di-no-saur,” I’ll say out loud, as everyone slowly backs out of the room. “Does that sound weird to you?” I share this boring anecdote in an attempt to explain the singular joys of listening to Kurt Vile, whose mesmerizing brand of folk-rock can make the most played-out phrases feel profound. On his sixth album, he has a song called “That’s Life,” a chorus about looking at the man in the mirror, another refrain about rolling with the punches. When delivered in the lulling sea of Vile’s finger-picked guitars and deconstructed piano chords, these clichés transform into a sort of everyman poetry. Dude could sing “It is what it is” for five minutes and have me in tears.

miguel_CVR_sq-563d9067c42173588ea2fbe88175d55171bd8d23-s300-c858. Miguel – Wildheart 

In a year when the top R&B song was an ode to the joys of facial numbness, Miguel’s third album was the sound of feeling returning. On his previous records, the Los Angeles vocalist did striking things within the confines of the late-‘90s neo-soul sound that so clearly inspired him. But Wildheart is something else entirely. Earthy and psychedelic, introspective and sex positive, it’s one of those thrilling documents of an artist ditching the old templates and exploring what’s underneath. It never strikes poses. “The Valley” weaves religious metaphors into its lustful narrative, not to seem controversial, just to make the point that great sex is spiritual. “Coffee” celebrates the context of making love with its simple, elegant arc of a chorus, placing conversations and caffeine on the same sensual pedestal as the act itself. “Face the Sun” positions true love as a moment where we see the light. Miguel has never been more confident in what he’s saying, in the sounds he wants to hear, in the sensations he thinks we all should get to feel. And that is a turn on. (from my review in PopMatters, 12/4/15)

No_Cities_to_Love_cover7. Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love

2015 would’ve been a perfect cash-in year for Sleater-Kinney – a decade since dissolution; 20 years since its debut album. The trio could’ve easily booked a tour where they play that record front to back and made thousands of people very happy. Instead, they made a new one. And it’s better. Impressively, No Cities To Love doesn’t just recapture the band’s signature sound, it continues the spirit of evolution that preceded it. Where 2005’s thrillingly loud The Woods played like a radio station .2 off on the dial, NCTL is crisp and considered, a 10-song study in artistic chemistry. Honing in on Carrie Brownstein’s endlessly inventive riffs, Corin Tucker’s flamethrower of a voice, or Janet Weiss’s propulsive drumming can be just as rewarding as letting the whole thing wash over you. “We’re wild and weary / But we won’t give in,” sings Tucker, selling the idea with every syllable. This is why fans hope for reunions.

Unknown6. Vince Staples – Summertime ’06

“My mama caused another problem when she had me.” When gangsta rap was at its height, a line like this would be a swaggering boast, a motto for an artist starring in his own ego-driven, cartoonish noir. But in the hands of 22-year-old Long Beach rapper Vince Staples, it’s something else entirely. First off, it’s a lie. A deception the narrator needs to believe in order to live with those bodies in the alley. Summertime ’06 is named after the season that drove Staples to nihilism – “the beginning of the end of everything I knew.” And producer No I.D. gives the darkness no place to hide, save a drum beat and a few strangled notes. Like Yeezus, it finds irresistible hooks in unvarnished territory. Unlike Yeezus, it doesn’t believe in any kind of god.

florence-2-web-300x3005. Florence + The Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

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. (from my review in PopMatters12/4/15)

61rIrx-CesL._SY300_4. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear 

I Love You, Honeybear sounds like a vintage Elton John LP, its rich, sad vocals buoyed by strings. It’s also marked by John’s old penchant for costumes. Recording for the second time under the guise of his sarcastic crooner-douche character Father John Misty, singer/songwriter Joshua Tillman falls 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. In “Nothing Ever Good Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow,” he bellows at the men who hit on his girlfriend in bars, “Why the long face, jerk off? / Your chance has been taken.” As the pedal steel notes bend to the heavens, we’re hearing a form of male bravado we’re not used to – the swagger of the monogamous. Then there’s the closer, where the band takes five, and the costume comes off. Over his own gentle acoustic strum, Tillman 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.” If he keeps writing songs like this, he can call himself whatever he wants.

kendrick-lamar-to-pimp-a-butterfly-album-cover-636-636-300x3003. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly 

We’re used to the narrative of pop stars rejecting their “voice of a generation” status. Dylan hid in the woods. Cobain set out for darker places. But I don’t think we’ve ever had an artist respond quite like Kendrick Lamar did this year. On his third album, the Compton rapper doesn’t reject or embrace the title. He obsesses over whether he’s worthy, snarling about the hypocrisies that should disqualify him, pinballing between belief in a just god and helplessness in the face of temptation. And he’s not afraid to make us feel the weight. To Pimp A Butterfly is a long, challenging LP, full of murky jazz and slow-building poetry, soaked in survivor guilt. For long stretches, Lamar doesn’t give us, or himself, much of a rhythm to latch onto. Listening to his bars unfold over slippery sax runs and ungrounded drums can be like trying to eat Jello with your hands. Which, in these violently racist times, is the point – there are no easy answers, no purely satisfying resolutions. But there are reprieves. Like “Alright,” the defiantly hopeful rallying cry and centerpiece of TPAB. “Do you hear me? / Do you feel me? / We gon be alright,” goes the refrain over a shimmering Pharrell beat. In that moment, in spite of himself, Kendrick Lamar is leading.

Young-Thug-Barter-622. Young Thug – Barter 6

In an October feature on Young Thug for The New York Times, Jon Caramanica gave us a fascinating peek at the rapper’s creative process. In the studio, with a beat playing, he stitched together stream-of-consciousness outbursts like quilts. It’s something different from freestyling. It’s more like freecrafting. And on Barter 6, his first proper solo LP, we got to see that knack for building songs take center stage. It’s a spacious experience, with producers like London On Da Track favoring subdued, synth-heavy environments, where the bass bubbles up like lava. It’s the perfect milieu for Thugga, for my money the most inventively melodic rapper alive. Every couplet could be a chorus in his hands, every boast about drugs and cars enlivened by the undulating squawk of his voice. “I got Hot Wheels like a motherfuckin’ chariot,” he boasts. In the midst of this impressively assured work of art, it’s clear he’s not talking about toys.

Cournetbarnett1. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

When somebody has a great voice, people say they’d pay to watch them read the phone book. I’d pay Courtney Barnett to write about the phone book. On her debut album, the Aussie singer/songwriter exhibits an uncanny ability to turn the most mundane daily activities into poignant ruminations. A visit to an open house becomes a reflection on the life of the previous owner. An elevator ride becomes a suicide hotline conversation. A morning swim becomes a metaphor for the awkwardness of a new crush. Barnett sings with with a lackadaisical, seen-it-all edge that’s reminiscent of ’90s alt-rock at its finest. She refuses to dramatize, to court us with her ideas. So when she heads to the beach to mourn the destruction of the environment, we follow, knowing the last thing we’re going to feel is manipulated.

Honorable Mentions: Drake & Future – What a Time To Be Alive; DVS – DVTV; Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap; Future – DS2; Goatsnake – Black Age Blues; High On Fire – Luminiferous; iLoveMakonnen – Drink More Water 5; Jamie xx – In Colour; Jay Rock – 90059; Jeff Lynne’s ELO – Alone in the Universe; Meek Mill – Dreams Worth More Than Money; Ashley Monroe – The Blade; My Morning Jacket – The Waterfall; Petite Noir – La Vie Est Belle; Screaming Females – Rose Mountain; Shamir – Ratchet; Slayer – RepentlessSlugdge – Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms; Chris Stapleton – Traveller; Wilco – Star Wars; Windhand – Grief’s Infernal Flower; Young Thug – Slime Season 2