This is the first time I’m posting about music on my site, but if you know me, you know how much I enjoy music and how large a part it plays in my every day life.
Although most of the music I listen to was not created in 2019, I’ve put together this list of the top 10 albums that stood out to me last year!
(here’s a Spotify playlist with some of the top tracks from these albums)
10.Vampire Weekend
Father of the Bride
Vampire weekend has put out some of the most fun-to-listen-to sad songs of the last decade with albums like Contra (2010) and Modern Vampires of the City (2013), and after a 6-year hiatus, they came back in 2019 with this lighthearted album that was a highlight of summer listening.
Top songs: This Life, Harmony Hall, and Unbearably White.
9.The National
I Am Easy to Find
The National has been my most listened to artist on Spotify for two of the last three years – this year being one of them. I spent 64 hours listening to them in 2019 just on Spotify; many of those hours spent with this new album. I also was able to see them play live (for the 3rd time) and wouldn’t be surprised if I see them play live the next time they’re in town.
With all of that build-up, I can confidently say I liked this album, but it is not even in the top three albums that they have put out. My order is: 1) Trouble will Find me, 2) Boxer, 3) High Violet. Some of the tracks, like Rylan and Light Years, remind me of how great the band is, but there are a few too many extraneous songs for it to break into my top five for the year.
Top songs: Light years (most listened to song of the year), Rylan, Hey Rosey, Oblivions.
8. Deerhunter
Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?
Although this album came out in January, it’s a late addition to this list as I only really started listening to it in November. I have known about Deerhunter for a couple of years now and have given their highly praised Halcyon Digest (2010) a few listens, but other than, “He Would Have Laughed,” nothing has ever stuck with me. That changed for me with this album, which starts very strong with, “Death in Midsummer,” and is followed up later with several even more enjoyable and engaging tracks. The thing that this album was able to do, which the previous ones struggled with, was the ability to keep my attention and reward me for sticking with it. Overall, a quite pleasant album to just put on and let play through.
Top songs: Death in Midsummer, What Happens to People, Futurism.
7. Purple Mountains
Purple Mountains
Before this album dropped in July, I had never heard of Purple Mountains, David Berman, the Silver Jews, or anyone related to this project, but the brutal open-eyed stare into loneliness and depression was too hard to miss; even before the news came out about Mr. Burman’s death a few weeks after the album’s release. This is not an album I would suggest to most people, especially with the association of Mr. Burman’s death inextricably tied to it. There is no beauty in his death and we should not glorify his solution to his pain. However, I don’t think the presence of suicide or depression in an artist should keep us from learning from or empathizing with them. This album has many genuine feelings contained in the lyrics that people all over the U.S. are feeling, as seen by the dramatic rise of “deaths of despair.” Increasing our knowledge of these feelings should help motivate the pursuit of more authentic connection, especially with those we know are hurting. Most people are not this honest about their depression, but that doesn’t mean they’re not dealing with it. It seems as though Mr. Burman didn’t see any hope, let’s remember that there always is hope.
Here are some of Mr. Burman’s most poignant lyrics speaking to his feelings of isolation.
From, “All My Happiness is Gone”
Friends are warmer than gold when you’re old
And keeping them is harder than you might suppose
Lately, I tend to make strangers wherever I go
Some of them were once people I was happy to know
And from, “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger”
She’s making friends, I’m turning stranger
The people on her end couldn’t make it plainer
Sometimes I wish we’d never came here
Seeing as I’m held in such disdain here
She’s making friends, I’m turning stranger
I see lots of normal men yearning to obtain her
I’m a loser, she’s a gainer
That’s one thing of which they’re dang sure
6. Big Thief
Two Hands
Big Thief, lead by the seemingly indomitable Adrienne Lenker, is the only band with two albums on my top ten list – because who puts out two great albums within six months of each other? More about their other album in a minute.
Two Hands has a couple of very sold tracks surrounded with a few that I will typically skip past. There is one thing that this album has that no other album on my list does: the best song of the year, “Not.” “Not” is simultaneously aggressive and elusive in its meaning. You might never know what it is about something or someone that has caused your ire to rise, but you can, either out of love or confusion, say what it is not. This song is a declaration of everything that isn’t responsible for the way we feel without being able to articulate with words what we are feeling. The tracks production combines with Lenker’s voice to perfectly match the free-form and defiant lyrics. I still get chills almost every time the guitar solo comes bursting through to tear the house down.
Top songs: Not, Shoulders, Forgotten Eyes
5. Big Thief
U.F.O.F.
As previously mentioned, Big Thief is one of 2019’s most impressive bands, putting out two great albums. the year’s first album, U.F.O.F., is a more intimate and quieter album than Two Hands with intricacies that can go either unnoticed or at least unappreciated on a first or second listen. But if there is one thing I’ve learned over the last several years about music it’s this: give an album more than one chance to grow on you, especially if it is from an artist you trust. After my first couple of listens to this album I wasn’t sold. I wanted the big, expansive sound that I enjoyed from their previous albums Capacity (2017) and Masterpiece (2016). When I saw this album’s rave reviews I felt like they were mostly a carryover of the goodwill and strength of these previous albums washing over the mind of reviewers. I have been happily proven wrong. U.F.O.F. stands alone as a singularly serene piece of art amidst the more raw guitar-driven indie anthems that characterize the band’s other records. Instead, this album reminds me of Lenker’s most beautiful and sparse solo albums, like her outstanding Hours Were the Birds (2014).
Along with the beautiful singing, song-writing, and tight harmonies, those who listen closely will appreciate the beautifully restrained percussion. This is not something that typically sticks out to me when listening to a record, but the delicate balance of intricate and precise drumming carries the whole album through with a spirited feel that holds onto the listener with a tender, relaxed grip.
Top songs: UFOF, Cattails, Orange, Terminal Paradise
4. LCD Soundsystem
Electric Lady Sessions
It’s kind of cheating for this album to be this high up on my list since there are no new LCD Soundsystem songs on the record, and it contains a few covers of other artists, but I make the rules of the list and I want this where it is. I only started listening to the band after the 2017 release of American Dream. That’s when I started digging through their catalog to see what I had been missing. There was gold in them hills, by golly.
I approach the Electric Lady Sessions for what it is – a great playlist of high energy, groovy hits. It sprints out of the gates with “Seconds,” and doesn’t let go for the next hour. James Murphy and the whole band drenches you with synths, driving guitars, and percussion in a simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive way. You’re going to want to turn the volume up and start punch dancing wherever you are, be that surrounded by traffic on your commute or alone in your room.
Top songs: you wanted a hit, oh baby, home, seconds.
3. Thom Yorke
ANIMA
ANIMA is a mood. (isn’t that what the kids are saying these days?) Thom Yorke, of Radiohead fame, is no stranger to solemnity and taking things very seriously in his music. ANIMA is no different, and if you’re a fan of his style of electric, dystopian ennui then you’re going to resonate with this project.
The album is accompanied by a film on Netflix that, if it hits you in the right mood like it did me, will bring a tear to your eye. The album, although soaked in the cog-in-the machine disconnection that has characterized much of Yorke’s work, does not leave the listener without glimmers of connection, however brief they may be.
The centerpiece of the project is, “Dawn Chorus;” a methodical telling of the end of a relationship. The song is, in a very real way, a dirge that Yorke sings in a lamenting monotone describing the scene. Here’s the second verse:
If you could do it all again
Yeah, without a second thought
I don’t like leaving
The door shut
I think I missed something
But I’m not sure what
In the middle of the vortex
The wind picked up
Shook up the soot
From the chimney pot
Into spiral patterns
Of you, my love
2. (Sandy) Alex G
House of Sugar
(Sandy) Alex G has a (an?) unique ability to draw me back to his music album after album, and I don’t exactly know why. His voice isn’t virtuosic, the music is a mix of contradictions, and the lyrics don’t necessarily stick out in my mind. None of that matters, however, when it comes to his music. If feels real, brimming with an easy and relaxed authenticity which is exciting to come by. The music is at times gritty and seemingly in conflict with itself, creating tension that grows before a voice or a violin tumbles through the chaos to direct the listener towards some light before being grabbed by a minor chord or base riff drawing you back into the churning waters of sound below. Amidst all of these things happening, your head will begin to nod back and forth to something buried beneath the surface. The nod is an admission that, even though you don’t really know why, you’ll be back for another listen soon.
Top songs: Gretel, In My Arms, Hope, Southern Sky, Project 2, Bad Man
1. Bill Callahan
Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest
This is the best album made in 2019. For me, it was also maybe the most unexpected album to latch onto this year since, before it came out in June: I had never heard the name Bill Callahan, it is over 20 tracks long, it is slow and folksy, and the whole thing is sung in a quiet, meditative baritone.
However, it only took one full listen to realize what I had stumbled upon. Callahan’s lyrics draw you into his life and head with a clarity of storytelling that still baffles me to this day. There is not a throw-away song on the whole album, and I’d have to think hard about whether there is even a throw-away line. The album flows from one thought and feeling to the next as naturally as a conversation with an old friend recounting what he’s been up to for the last few years. Callahan talks about dealing with good and bad relationships, about his creative process, about fun new things he’s learning as a father and husband, and how he’s dealing with his past as he’s moving into the future.
Anyone who I’ve talked to about music this year has probably already heard me talk about this album (as well as some of his other albums I now have also discovered). So instead of going on for much longer I’ll just sprinkle some of his lyrics down here at the bottom for you.
“The Ballad of the Hulk”
A master of reiki
Waved his hands over me
And said I eat too much steak
And hold on too long to ancient takes
And both are so hard
On my heart
Oh, I try to be a good person
I wonder if it’s annoying
Or worth pursuing
“747”
I woke up on a 747
Flying through some stock footage of heaven
This is the light right here
Before clouds bittersweet and with suggestion
This is the light
Bald and bold as baby crawling toward adulteration
There was blood when you were born
And the blood was white from your eyes
This must be the light you saw
That just left you screaming
And this must be the light you saw
Before our eyes could disguise true meaning
And this must be the light you saw
Just as you were leaving
Leaving
“What Comes After Certainty”
True love is not magic
It’s certainty
And what comes after certainty
“Call Me Anything”
I never was the things I said I was
But it’s not as I Lied
What I was, all I was
Was the effort to describe
The effort to describe
Now, I may not have been born to deliver the truth
But I sure do love to ride the route
When I’m on my bicycle
I am a seagull
Made of man and metal
And I am flying, flying
Let the blind call me dark
Let the weak call me peak-ridden
Let the butchers grind our hearts
And claim there’s no love within
But you can call me anything
Just as long as I can sing
Yeah, you can call me anything
Just as long as I can sing
Honorable Mention
Frances Cone
Late Riser
This album didn’t make the top ten list mostly because I had forgotten that it came out in 2019 until after I had written everything else above. I’ve been listening to Cone since a house show since 2016 when they came and played a random house show in D.C. where I gave them $20 bucks directly instead of splitting it with the other (bad) bands who were playing. They were amazing and since then I have randomly crossed paths with them on multiple occasions in Boston, when they were playing literally across the street from my hotel, and in a record store in Greenville, SC, where they were playing an intimate set in the middle of the day. So needless to say, I’m a fan of them in a different way than most of the other music on this list.
Christina’s soft voice can fill a room no matter how small or big, and pairs beautifully with the swelling ballads the band creates around her. This is their first full album since 2013, and is great to put on as you’re sitting around on a lazy Sunday afternoon sipping coffee.
Top tracks: Arizona, Wide Awake, Unraveling.
