Best Albums of 2019
Another year round the sun and another installment of this list - the 21st (!) of its kind for me. Interest in circulating a top 10 list of albums has waxed and waned over the years, but it's a fun little December ritual for me. More and more, this list is the reason I'm finding new music. Left up to my own devices, I might never get beyond my favorite Walkmen or Arcade Fire albums. So, read through it if you like. I always like to see everyone else's favorite lists, too. That is, after all, how I first discovered Funeral back in 2004.
The other thing I'm finding about the list as I get older is that it seems to track closer and closer to a particular theme. I don't know if that's autobiographical necessarily or if it's just that I'm tending to latch on to a specific genre in a certain year. I was definitely angry last year topping my list with IDLES and also including Rolo Tomassi and Fontaines DC in the list. Now, the best concert I saw this year and maybe the best concert I saw of this decade was IDLES with Fontaines DC, so it's not like I'm not still angry. And I cheated a bit last year by picking a series of Fontaines' EPs that became this year's album Dogrel. So I sort of picked them a year early. But this year's list reflects a definite change in tone: calmer, more moody, melancholy. And country! The debut on this list of an honest-to-God country album. And a couple of other albums that, while not necessarily "country", pay homage to the sound and the wide open Western landscapes of old school country. Not only that, but the debut of a classical album! Who knew there was even new stuff happening in the world of classical?
So, anyways, lots of new directions for yours truly. Let's get to the list, but first what didn't make it:
Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions
My tastes have usually diverged pretty far from the likes of Pitchfork, Spin, et.al. but I feel like I'm getting really far away from them now. I tried pretty hard to get into Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, and Bon Iver and it just wasn't happening. They're not bad albums, I just didn't get into them the way everyone else seemed to.
One album I really did not like, though, was Vampire Weekend's Father of the Bride. I actually did see them live this year and they still put on a great show and I still love Ezra's lyrics and the complex melodies they put together. And there are still fabulous songs on it. Harmony Hall is a top 10 Vampire Weekend song - complex melodies, some great lyrics, beautiful, etc. It just seems so much shallower than 2013's Modern Vampires of the City which topped this list back then. The departure of Rostam Batmangli from the band, at least on this first album, seems to have taken some of the edge off. Even worse, though, I seriously hate the band HAIM and having three (!) duets with Danielle Haim is a bridge too far for me. And the song Sunflower is on my short list for most annoying song of the year.
One single to note for 2019 that doesn't officially have an album yet is In My Room from Frank Ocean. He's consistently amazing and nearly topped this list in 2016 with Blonde. Expect more of the same next year if In My Room is any sign.
Top 10 of 2019
10. Purple Mountains - S/T
2019 marked the third year in a row that I waited (unsuccessfully) for the mythical new Wrens album to launch. That's looking less and less likely to ever happen. But, completely unforeseen was David Berman releasing an album of completely new music under the moniker Purple Mountains. His previous band, Silver Jews, made the very first edition of this list way back in 1998. A couple more middling albums through the 2000s and, by 2008, Silver Jews was no more. It was that era where you always seemed to have really insightful, mournful lyricists like Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith and David Berman fit squarely in that demograph which fit squarely within my 20-something era of melancholy.
Fast forward a decade and we've all changed and gotten frumpier, but I still like to meditate on my melancholy. So this new album of David Berman material was right in my wheelhouse. It's that sort of melancholy processed through the lens of getting older and how relationships inevitably change. Great lines like "Lately, I tend to make strangers wherever I go. Some of them were people I was once happy to know."
It all ended tragically, though, as David Berman took his own life less than a month after the album dropped. You can't help but look at the album now, with its themes of alienation from friends and potential friends, without realizing there was, sadly, something deeper going on.
9. Big Thief - Two Hands
You actually had two Big Thief albums to choose from this year. Two Hands was the latter of those two albums, which must mean that these songs weren't good enough to be on their other 2019 album U.F.O.F? Both good albums, but for my money this is the one you want. It's certainly the one I listen to a lot more. It feels a lot more raw. Certainly, the standout track on this (Not) starts out with the trademark Big Thief indie folk sound before descending into a visceral all-out assault on the listener. You get more of that on tracks like Shoulders and The Toy.
8. Bleached - Don't You Think You've Had Enough?
Okay. So one thing is never ever, ever going to change about me: I love new wave music. That makes me a dinosaur, but I grew up on it. I loved it then, I love it now, I will always love it. It's great to see a millennial band like Bleached who I can only imagine had parents that played Duran Duran non-stop in the house. Listen to Hard to Kill and you can completely imagine the Taylor brothers playing the rhythm line. I feel like they need a writing credit actually. Nothing complex here, it's just going to be an album full of run new wave-ish tracks like Heartbeat Away, Shitty Ballet, and Hard to Kill.
7. Dead Little Penny - Urge Surfing
A new job means a lot less international travel these days but, over the years, I've learned to track all the best new albums coming out of a few key countries - New Zealand, Sweden, Ireland, and of course Canada and the UK top that list. I talked about Dublin's Fontaines DC already. They would have made this year's list if I hadn't included their EPs last year. And from the land that brought list regular Gin Wigmore comes Dead Little Penny. This Auckland trio reminds me a lot of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive. Just listening to the album you know that they would put on the type of show that mandates earplugs. Check out Depression or Honeycomb.
6. Shovels and Rope - By Blood
The new album by Shovels and Rope marks this list's turn into "country-ish" territory. But, really, Shovels and Rope owe a lot more to garage rock acts like the White Stripes than anything else and not just because they consist of actual husband and wife couple Michael Trent (on guitar) and Cary Ann Hearst (on drums). Shovels and Rope, though, really need the combined talents of both members (certainly more so than the White Stripes ever did). Most of the songs on By Blood feature harmonies built between Michael's straight ahead rock voice and Cary Ann's Stevie Nicks-ish snarl. I first heard Mississippi Nuthin' on NPR and went right to Spotify to find the album. The album's largely built around small town themes, trying to make something of your life, that sort of real Springsteen vibe I love (more on him later). Some fabulous Bruce-ish lyrics like "Cause I've always been that kind of go-to friend or maybe it's true, maybe I'm just a blue collar version of you" and "We're on a losing streak. I got laid off last week, but I got a plan that's gonna turn it all around". Also check out By Blood.
5. Lizzo - Cuz I Love You
I mean, 2019 was pretty much the year of Lizzo. There's blowing up and then there's Lizzo's 2019. Capped off by playing the Eddie Murphy episode of SNL complete with an entire backing band of African American women. There's not much more I can say about her than what's already been written. Suffice it to say that her brand of empowered, fuck-everyone-else-take-care-of-yourself hip hop is such a punk rock message. And no one can deliver it like her. She had far and away the best Tiny Desk concert of all time. No one controls a room like she does. It's impossible not to watch. And while other albums of hers had bigger hits, you can't ignore her chops on Cuz I Love You or Juice. Oh, and no one rocks a flute like Lizzo. Not Ron Burgundy, not Ian Anderson, no one.
4. Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars
Continuing my theme of country-ish albums recalling expansive Western landscapes..... I feel like this album really got lost this year. I haven't seen it on many end of year lists. Maybe it's because Bruce hit 70 this year and is in his own category even beyond legendary status at this point. But I feel like this is his best album since he topped this list in 2006 with The Seeger Sessions. Now, Western Stars is a lot more classical Bruce but it feels a lot bigger. Lots of strings, orchestration, that sort of thing. The orchestration paints the picture of the landscapes he's envisioning in these songs. Any number of great songs on here, but check out Tucson Train, Hitch Hikin', and Western Stars. If you plan to head out on a road trip through the Western states, you need this album.
3. Sharon van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
In a lot of years, this would be number one. This is almost a perfect rock and roll album. It helps that this album reflects a lot of where I am entering my 40s but still feeling like I've got a 17 year old in me some days...but then realizing that I don't really. Not only is it some masterful songwriting going on here, but the album is just a lot more complex than some of her past efforts. There's just a lot more depth to the instrumentation and a lot more sound to every song on here. But it never detracts from the rawness and the emotion of someone singing about putting all the victories and defeats of their 20s and 30s behind them. Check out Comeback Kid and Seventeen.
2. Henryk Gorecki w/ Beth Gibbons - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Talk about albums I didn't see coming. I'd never heard of Polish composer Henryk Gorecki and never heard of his third symphony colloquially known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. But I do know Beth Gibbons, of course. She topped this list with Portishead's Third in 2008 and made the list in 2002 on a solo project with Rustin Man. So she's kind of the Tony LaRussa of this list. And because Facebook knows I'm such a fan of hers, this album came tripping through my feed one day. At the same time, I heard a review of the album on NPR's All Songs Considered and, while talking about the album, one of the broadcasters broke down crying on air. No joke. It really is worth finding that episode.
That said, having listened to this album multiple times now, I totally get it. The music is so evocative and it is just....so....sad. The libretto is all in Polish, but they're all adapted from various poems and such. The second movement is actually a poem that was discovered scrawled on the walls of Auschwitz. But for pure heartbreaking sadness, I'll give you this translated snippet from the third movement:
Where has he gone
My dearest son?
Perhaps during the uprising
The cruel enemy killed him.
Ah, you bad people
In the name of God, the most Holy
Tell me why did you kill
My son?
And it goes on from there. It is shattering. And then layer on to it the fact that the aria is sung by Beth Gibbons. She's not an opera singer and she doesn't speak Polish. Can you imagine the bravery it took to take on this project? Singing a Polish aria when you're not classically trained? She does, of course, have an out-of-this world voice. But the fact that it's not perfect makes it even more affecting. This was actually a performance that took place in Poland in 2013 but, for whatever reason, was not released until this year. It's not the sort of album you're going to listen to any time, but if the point of music is to make you feel something I can't think of many that do it better than this.
1. Orville Peck - Pony
Talk about albums I really did not see coming. My list is usually indie rock dominated, though a lot of other genres make reliable appearances. Hip hop is almost always on the list, having topped it in 2003 and 2015. Kamasi Washington has been a reliable jazz participant in the list the last couple of years and we actually had a jazz album top the list in 2007. Electronic music pops in and out of the list - Brian Eno was on here last year already. We just had the very first classical music entrant on the list but I've never had a single country album even make the list. Definitely albums with a country vibe to it, but never anything that would be classified as "country". Until now. Not only does Orville Peck make the list...he tops it.
It's the country album I've been waiting for. It hearkens back to the outlaw country from way back when. You know, "good" country like Hank and Johnny. But the sound is updated with modern rock sensibilities. Rock and country have always been linked, it's confounding that the two have grown so far apart. So enter this album which seems like a total unicorn. It's a country album. On the SubPop label. That got air time on Sirius XMU. Not only that but Orville is Canadian. He's gay. He wears cowboy outfits on stage. As well as a fringed Lone Ranger mask. That's him on the cover.
I'd seriously considered swapping my numbers one and two, but I ultimately realized that every single track on Pony is great and that I'd listened to this album more than anything else this year. Carrying every track is Orville's Elvis-like baritone. It's a remarkable voice that carries a remarkable string of hits: Dead of Night is something that would have been played at the Bang Bang Cafe on Twin Peaks, you can imagine Winds Change bringing down Nashville's Ryman auditorium, Turn to Hate is probably the most radio friendly and you could imagine even crossing over to current-day country radio, Roses are Falling could be an Elvis hit, Take You Back features the railroad train rhythm line familiar to any Johnny Cash fan. But it's not a throwback album at all, it's all thoroughly modern. I saw an interview he gave where he said that his fan base includes country fans, punks, and 85 year old Hank fans. It's a worthwhile album to finally break the lack of country albums on my list. Only took 21 years.
