2021 Music: Here We...Keep Doing This

 I guess I just blog once a year now. I've had lofty ideas about trying to post at least once a month with a check-in of my favorite music from that month, but I just don't sit down often enough to do that. It's like a PA at work, I start listing my accomplishments in January and forget about it in February, and then I have to do a big deep dive in December to figure out what I did all year. So happy December!

If we can call it happy. Omicron is here to prolong this hellscape. Disappointing trial results from the vaccines for young children are here to keep me on edge through the majority of 2022. Another year just passed us by and we continue to wait.

But music keeps happening. Music is how I keep time. Again, I keep track of music as it comes out. I just don't write about it.

In 2021 we lost some giants. Rest in peace, Gared O'Donnell. And Gift of Gab, Biz Markie, and many more.

Sorry, some things I had to just get out there. Seems like the perfect mood to write about great music. Let's go. Not ranking this year, just going in kind of chronological order, to help keep time or whatever. All of this stuff was great and I felt weird whenever people shrugged about the music that came out this year. Either they didn't get it, they weren't looking in the right places, or they were just looking for something different from me. I will say it was nice that there was no big marquee album topping everyone's list this year. 

Here we go. Divided by season because whatever, why not.

Best of Winter 2021 (the pre-vax)

Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales

I forget where I first heard of Jazmine Sullivan but it was recent. Late 2020. Enough to get hyped on this when it came out because her voice is amazing and does so many unique things and I dunno. It's a great voice. This album has such a great feel, divided by interludes that seem as important as the music itself, about what life is like for these Black women. It also means there are like 7 actual songs, so it's almost an EP. But every song matters.

Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz

This should have been a joke album. It is pretty funny. And the joke lasted all year long...I can still listen to these songs and chuckle about this dude acting like a toddler who doesn't need a woman telling him to clean his room or brush his teeth. Very basic but funny. But it's not just that. The music on this is AMAZING. A pounding beat, all sorts of garage post punk sounds, a saxophone. The synthy "Creatures" is pretty much a perfect outsiders song straight out of the 80s but also timely. I really want to see this band live. Like, I want to see any band live, but this would be quite the show. 

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Carnage

Dude, this album. It is tense. Since Skeleton Tree, these guys have been on another level. They've always been brilliant, but they keep outdoing themselves somehow. I don't even know what to say. It's Nick Cave, who has become maybe the most consistently brilliant lifer in modern pop music. If you know, you know.

Best of Spring 2021 (the vaxxed dayz)

serpentwithfeet - DEACON

I didn't know how he would follow up the brilliant soil, my #1 album of 2018. That one was an impossibly heavy exploration of Black queer struggles. When I heard this one was going to be a positive, uplifting celebration, I was a little reluctant (it took me a whole 5 seconds to preorder the album on vinyl when it was announced) but figured I'd trust him to follow his muse. What we got was an impossibly light celebration of Black queer love. All the deep love but also silly things like wearing socks with sandals and super catchy a capella trumpet sounds. 

Squid - Bright Green Field

I'll admit that I was initially drawn in by how goofy the sing-speak sounded with the adventurous post punk sounds. But the lyrics were quite interesting and I stuck around more enjoyed the rhythm section and the guitar noodling and got some real feeling from the vocal stylings. Mostly, the music is an adventure that hits me in all my spots. This is maybe the kind of band I'd be in if I had the talent/dedication. Super dynamic, you really feel every beat as it bounces all over the place, builds, explodes, bounces around some more, pulls you in, pushes out out, and keeps going.

McKinley Dixon - For My Mama And Anyone Who Look Like Her

This should have been so much bigger. I think the only thing working against McKinley Dixon is the inevitable comparisons. Whenever I try to talk about him, I fall back on saying he sounds a bit like Kendrick Lamar. Who is the GOAT in my opinion, and most opinions. I'm not trying to compare him to the giant, but he flips his flow around in similar ways and the jazz music reminds me of To Pimp a Butterfly. It's conscious, it's experimental, it's highly entertaining, it got me interested in hip hop again after a bit of a lull. Endless creativity. The way he starts with something super catchy, then immediately breaks it to speed up the flow, destroys the beat to rebuild...how in the hell is he only at 10k monthly listens on Spotify? Buy his stuff on Bandcamp.

Best of Summer 2021 (here comes Delta...)

Death Goals - The Horrible And The Miserable

I think I just listen to little enough chaotic hardcore music that when I give it another chance I love it so much. This album takes so many sharp turns, it's pure exhilaration. This is just two dudes. Somehow. The heaviest stuff. Anything that makes you feel this alive in 2021 needs to be savored.

Backxwash - I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES

Speaking of hardcore. The heaviest stuff. Unforgiving hardcore/industrial hip hop. I was blasting this in my Honda Fit one day on my drive home from work, and I am a late 30s white dude, and some teenagers pulled up next to me, I just nodded while the hardest stuff they'd likely heard that day blasted out of my economy car, and they just yelled "you're amazing" which made me feel pretty good about my life choices. At least I made their day. Again, you find what makes you feel alive these days and for me some days it's Black trans industrial hardcore hip hop.

We Are The Union - Ordinary Life

Some days it's white trans ska. I don't make the rules. But I totally dove right back into the ska scene 25 years after it changed my life and set me on my path of musical discovery I've been following to rewarding destinations after rewarding destinations. WATU is special. I've listened to most of the big ska releases of 2021 and most of it feels like a retread (there are still some great bands still doing great things), this album is about Reade's struggles and rewarding path toward her coming out as trans. It's striking in how relatable it is, even to this cishet dude. Songs like "Broken Brain" about struggling with getting your brain to pay attention instead of getting lost in itself, or "Everything Alone" about making poor decisions out of boredom/loneliness. It all leads to the great climax in "December," about shedding the old identity to become one's true self. The horn lines are catchy, the whole thing is catchier than any pop song I heard this year. Ska still has something to say.

Dave - We're All Alone In This Together

Very British. He just raps in a way that makes me feel it all. Like in the first track with the lines like "Me and him got more in common than he thinks but I tell him it's nothin' big so I can go on and live with myself." It's being alone, it's being together. He can rap for 9 minutes with no beat and it just pulls me in. Together. There's also plenty of fun songs with clever wordplay like "Twenty To One" which finds many different meaning to "Twenty to One." It's just great stuff.

Emma-Jean Thackray - Yellow

This one is wild. Some of the grooviest, funkiest beats. It's basically jazz fused with funk, all about the planets and astrology and a kind of spirituality that I don't quite align with personally, but it'd be hard to resist a cult if it were led by Emma-Jean Thackray. She has a wisdom about her, the music builds and feels like freedom? I don't know, it's a good escape from this crazy world to look beyond the stars, or at least beyond the moon.

Tyler, The Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST

I'm finally getting into Tyler. It seems like he's just matured so much since the OFWGKTA days (did I acronym that right?). But he continues to elevate the form and simultaneously be more relatable and simultaneously be super catchy. I don't know. Others have written about how this is him going more into straight up rap and rapping the hell out of it. I guess that's true but there's more to it than that. The way the beats morph but it makes sense with every zig zag the sound takes. Like a mixtape or scanning different radio stations but every beat hits just right. Does this mean anything?

CHVRCHES - Screen Violence

Like everyone else, I loved the first two CHVRCHES albums, didn't care much for the third. I had very little interest when this one was announced. But it's great, it has the same creative bombastic energy of those first albums with a horror-ish theme. They got a John Carpenter remix, after all. And got Robert Smith to show up on a track. I like it because it's triumphant. The best moments are related to horror films, but those triumphant parts of horror films where you are able to breathe, like when Nancy brought Freddy into the waking world or when Sydney kicked Ghostface's ass. Triumph over the horror.

Amyl and The Sniffers - Comfort To Me

I remember checking out their last album because everyone talked about how great it was, but I just didn't care for it. I'm not sure if I changed or they changed, but this album is perfection. Perfect rock and roll. Or punk or whatever you want to call it. It has that energy that makes it hit harder than anything else. It's simple, but her voice hits just right, the drums, the few guitar chords, it's just what I want. I don't know how to explain it. I've always loved punk, and this hits those nerves in just the right way.

Low - HEY WHAT

I listened to a bit of Low in the early 2000s I think. They were interesting but not so interesting that I'd continue to follow them. Checking back in 20 years later due to all the hype they were getting, I was shocked that this was the same band. A completely unique approach to melody, to song structure, while still being super catchy and feel-good. I love the way the fragments of sounds make beats, kind of like what Fugazi was doing back in the day, but with more vocal harmonies and pure gorgeousness (note: not saying Fugazi isn't gorgeous or not the best band ever) and 2021 energy.

Best of Fall 2021 (Boosted just in time for Omicron!)

Xenia Rubinos - Una Rosa

Honestly this is probably my #1 of the year. There's a lot of great stuff out there that made me feel alive, a lot of unique takes on things, and this one did both in such a great way. I listened to a bit of Xenia Rubinos and even got Black Terry Cat on Bandcamp because she showed up attached to two of my favorite artists: Deerhoof ("Singalong Junk" from Mountain Moves) and Battles ("They Played It Twice" from Juice B Crypts). With this new album, I can certainly detect the similarities (some real Battles energy on "Ay Hombre," some Deerhoof vibes in the playfulness across genres), but she is something totally different. The beats on this album, the soulful vocals, particularly the Spanish sung portions, the Laurie Anderson-esque distortions, this is an album that brings together so many of my favorite things while being something completely different. It's a revelation. I love it so much.

Gustaf - Audio Drag for Ego Slobs

This is what post punk is supposed to sound like. I hear a lot of bands these days that get labeled as post punk, but this gets the feeling just right. It's as immediate as punk, it's got the funky bass lines, it's playful. It's pretty simple. It's just right.

Some More Hearty Endorsements

These were on the cusp of making the above list because they're also great.

• Madlib - Sound Ancestors
• Tune-Yards - Sketchy
• Esther Rose - How Many Times
• For Those I Love - For Those I Love
• Dawn Richard - Second Line
• Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future
• black midi - Cavalcade
• Gary Numan - Intruder
• Laura Mvula - Pink Noise
• Yola - Stand For Myself
• Catbite - Nice One
• Indigo De Souza - Any Shape You Take
• Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
• Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
• Deerhoof - Actually, You Can
• Maxo Kream - WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
• The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore

The Best Music of The Worst Year

What even was this year?

Music just hit differently this year, didn’t it? Didn’t everything? This artform that is so good at getting right to your emotional core, in this year of high highs and low lows (many lows), was so poignant. Because our suffering and our joy were somewhat communal. Yes, as individuals we had very personal moments of sorrow and joy -- particularly those who lost loved ones -- but there were so many moments where I genuinely felt that we were all going through things together. The rage and sorrow over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain. The election. Wildfires. And of course, COVID-19 and the alienation we all felt together during the shutdown (and the haphazard reopening).

I know, we are more divided than ever (see the actual reactions to all of the above events). I’m not that naïve. But it felt like music reached out and provided a conduit for that connection. Even if that connection was between me, an artist, and the rest of that artist’s listeners (not enough of you listened to Dua Saleh!). But it was still a valuable connection that ran deep because of what music is and what it does. It taps into this.

Does any of this make sense? Should I just share my list so you can see what sort of connection we have? Sure, let’s do that.

I’m having a hard time with ranking things. Especially this year. So I’m going to have a number one, but everything else is going to be divided into categories instead of put into an order. If it’s listed here, I loved it and think you should check it out. Maybe on Bandcamp so you can toss a few bucks to an artist that didn’t get to tour this year.

How Dare You! - Surprising albums from artists that I didn’t think could surprise me like that.

• of Montreal - UR FUN
  
  What was it about this one? It shouldn’t surprise me when of Montreal puts out another good one, but they are so prolific that I always go in with low expectations. It seems like nobody has taken them seriously in over a decade even though they’re pretty consistent. When this rush of sugar came out in January, it immediately hit me and gave me a lot of hope. Later in the year, it became my throwback to those pre-pandemic days. Though there are plenty of grounding moments like “You’ve Had Me Everywhere” that happen to be about mortality and connection that gained some extra poignancy in this year where we saw a lot of both of those things. Because of Montreal is at its best when it uses that spoonful of sugar to help the sorrow and alienation go down.
  
  
• ...And They Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - X: The Godless Void and Other Stories
  Come on, it’s 2020. I listened to them a bit in college and thought they were cool but I’ve changed so much since then. How dare they put out a brilliant collection of post hardcore (or whatever descriptor applies) in 2020? This hit my emotions hard with lots of big moments even before the majority of 2020’s nonsense hit. I should’ve known something was amiss.
  
  
• The Flaming Lips - American Head
  Once upon a time, The Flaming Lips put out a perfect album for 2020. The Soft Bulletin, from 1999, expertly combines pure dread and sorrow with the hopeful optimism of jumping into an unknown void. Not to mention literal lyrics about heroes sacrificing themselves to find a cure to a disease plaguing the world. We didn’t need modern Flaming Lips, known for weirdo, off-putting, frankly exhausting experiments to say any more. But they did. And this album once again combines pure dread and sorrow with the hopeful optimism of jumping into an unknown void. Another perfect album for 2020. There’s something somewhat grounded about this album as well, where it really taps into the collective sadness and exhaustion (rather than being exhausting) that is 2020 on planet earth with an earnestness that I didn’t know they were capable of anymore.
  
  
• Taylor Swift - folklore (What? She's not on Bandcamp? I hope she can make ends meet!)
  Seriously, how dare you. I’ve always thought she was fine, as far as popular artists go. But really not for me. Then Aaron Dessner was producer on the new one and I was even more eager to write it off. Like, that’s trying way too hard to be taken seriously and be “indie cool” or something. But I had to at least give that song with Bon Iver a spin. And that song stuck in my head and I realized it was very good. And then I put the whole album on a playlist (my general method for evaluating stuff). And the first several times it came on, I’d think “who was this again? This is good!” and then look and HOW DARE YOU, TAYLOR SWIFT. It is so moving, it definitely has her lyrical style (which I’m mostly learning from this album; it just has a good voice about it), it’s grounded and wonderful. Front to back. Damnit. And she put out a second one that I haven’t really had time to digest yet! Ugh!
  
  
• Thurston Moore - By the Fire
  
  This isn't such an extreme example, but Thurston Moore has put out plenty of solo material that I've been ok just ignoring it. But this one is really exciting. It's got what I love about Sonic Youth all over it. The guitar experimentation. The extended jam sessions. The mood setting. The payoffs. I feel like lots of his solo material is either less guitar-forward or less accessible. This one tows that line wonderfully, in a very Sonic Youthy manner. Dig it!

Great Discoveries - Stuff I learned about this year, obvs.

• keiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl
  
  I don't know what makes this unique, it's just really good soul and it's so damn easy to love. The beats kind of remind me of J Dilla. And the songs are these little pieces of brilliant poetry and singing and I don't know, it's just real good stuff.
  
  
• Dua Saleh - ROSETTA (EP)
  
  I really look forward to Dua Saleh's first full album, assuming they ever go that direction. We keep getting singles and EPs and this EP is the closest thing we have to an album so far. So I have to break whatever rule I never set and include an EP on this list because I am really really excited about this artist. They are totally unique and badass and sound and feel like no one else. It's a hip hop attitude with experimental production and a certain melodic sensibility that I can't pin down. But listening to it is powerful stuff. Music!
  
  
• Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
  
  This one is really neat. Some great instrumental electronic music that kind of reminds me of Battles or something. It's like going spelunking, and I just wanted to use that word but it does make me think of exploring caves. Discovery. Anyway, then she sings on some songs and that puts it over the top for me. It brings a certain intimacy to the proceedings. Then there's John Cale to bring a certain "so damn cool" credibility as well.
  
  
• Shamir - Shamir
  
  I never checked out the first couple Shamir albums, though I am guessing I would like them. I read about him in a really good Pitchfork article about black artists in the indie scene and was quite intrigued. This is fascinating bedroom pop that feels very very intimate (I'm noticing a theme here) and so very catchy, straddling lines of pop sensibilities, gender, genre, race, creating something that can only be described as Shamir.
  
  
• Bartees Strange - Live Forever
  
  I first heard of Bartees Strange one Bandcamp Friday when I was browsing some intriguing Black artists. He had an album of covers by The National that was quite intriguing. I gave it a listen but it didn't really catch me. I decided to give him another chance when his album Live Forever came out, and am I glad I did. This is one of my top revelations of 2020 (obviously, as it's on this list). There's a bit of everything here, mostly rock with a whole lot of passion, not too far removed from Arcade Fire or TV on the Radio but still quite unique. Some rapping on "Boomer," some giant M83-esque synths on "Mustang," all in a cohesive package that works better than I feel like I've been able to describe it. Another artist I am really itching to see live. Someday it must happen. And yes, I gave that National covers album another chance and it's great.
  
  
• Special Interest - The Passion Of
  
  It's like a band that actually took the torch of Refused's The Shape of Punk to Come. And other great bands that combined hardcore with electronics, such as Brainiac and The Locust. It's not that complicated. It works really well. And for whatever reason, there aren't a lot of people doing it. What you get is a certain controlled chaos. Or like a train that is going to keep going no matter what happens on the track, if there is someone tied to it or whatever, you can't control the train. You can only control what you're doing while you're stuck on the train. The train will just keep going. 

Ol’ Reliables - I thought it’d probably be pretty good, and it was better than that.

• U.S. Girls - Heavy Light
  Yeah, because 2018’s In A Poem Unlimited was one of my top albums of that year. So of course. Meg Remy keeps doing new things and stuff. She seems to have a really cool network of collaborators and this feels like a good demonstration of that, even though it’s all filtered through Remy’s vision. It’s high energy and BIG but intimate. It’s fearless and super creative. She makes some weird stuff really catchy and it works. I don’t know how else to explain this, but it’s real good. And the use of the Q&A interludes almost makes the album a conversation, as you think of your own experiences and it puts you into a personal mindstate for the songs that follow. Still one of my favorite artists I’ve discovered in the last couple years. It was also the first concert I’d planned on going to that got cancelled when the world got knocked down. I hope she comes back soon.
  
  
• Grimes - Miss Anthropocene
  I almost could’ve put this in the “How Dare You” category even though she hasn’t missed yet music-wise. Just the Elon Musk thing and the baby name thing (remember when that was the big scandal in early 2020?), it was kind of a “this album better be brilliant or it will be terrible” situation. But of course it was brilliant. So personal and heartbreaking and big, like so much of the music discussed here. It sounds like she's just calling out to... you? Us? Whoever is listening? 


• Caribou - Suddenly
  
  I love this because it's simultaneously so digital and so analog. Organic and processed. I don't know, the way he samples pianos and other very analog pieces into such modern sounds is so brilliant, so soulful, you just gotta listen to it. 


• Nicole Atkins - Italian Ice
  
  
Longtime fan of Nicole Atkins. She's in what seems to be an effortless period in her career. At least that's how it sounds. Just the confidence and easy goodness of the songs. Even though her best songs are the ones where she throws her whole self into those vocal breakdowns. Which feels like effort. She just knows exactly where to deploy that secret weapon for maximum effect.


• Run the Jewels - RTJ4
  These dudes. They bring it every damn time and they have yet to disappoint. This might even be my favorite. Not sure, because my favorite RTJ album is probably whatever one I'm listening to at the moment. RTJ2 comes to mind though. But RTJ4 captures the moment so well. Everybody talks about Killer Mike's verse on "Walking in the Snow" and yeah. It gives me shivers. And there's that song with Mavis Staples. And the song that samples Gang of Four. This has to be their best album, doesn't it??
  
  
• Deerhoof - Future Teenage Cave Artists
  
Deerhoof is almost frustratingly reliable. They are so prolific, and every time it's another great album. They were involved with several great albums this year, including some live stuff, some collaborative stuff (check out Greg's collab with Serengeti!), experimental covers...but the "normal" studio release Future Teenage Cave Artists yet again showcased that this is one of the most creative bands working and while it always sounds like Deerhoof with its quirky rhythms and crazy guitars and fun vocals, there's always something a little different and new every time. I can never not include them on a list like this and I can never not recommend them, even though it also feels like I don't know of any new ways to write about what they're doing or what exactly sets this album apart from the last one. It just sounds fresh every time, and it is all worth listening to. So get this one if you haven't, get their past releases if you haven't, just get on the Deerhoof train if you're not already there.


• Margo Price - That’s How Rumors Get Started
  
  I dunno, she's just real good. A modern badass country singer kind of like Loretta Lynn maybe? This is the stuff I'm a real sucker for, what can I say? The album is also really eclectic so it just breezes by. But it does leave a mark. Especially when she goes out on the closer "I'd Die For You."
  
  
• Fleet Foxes - Shore
  
  This one didn't catch me as immediately as I hoped it would. But it's closer to Helplessness Blues than Crack-Up. Which means it's more of a feel-good album that doesn't try to throw you off your game with weird experimental portions. I'm a bit split in my preferences; as I as a rule prefer the experimental stuff, but Helplessness Blues is one of my favorite albums of all time for the way it speaks directly to my own desires to settle down into comfort. Anyway. Have I written enough about this even though I've said very little? This has a lot of the earnestness that I love about Fleet Foxes, and beautiful melodies and general niceness.
  
  
• Annie - Dark Hearts
  This just felt like it got glossed over and overlooked and I really don't understand why. It's only Annie's third album and her first in 11 years! This one's a moody, synthy affair that calls to mind driving in a city at night, not unlike Chromatics. I'm sure this is an album they'd play at the Bang Bang Bar in Twin Peaks. There's such a strong nostalgia to this album, and I get more and more obsessed every time I give it a spin. "The Streets Where I Belong" instantly sounds like a classic radio hit that everybody should know, why don't they all know it? It's that earnestness that I love about the 80s that I've spoken about at length. Nostalgia for when you felt everything so deeply, it's a teenager album even though it's a grown-up album.

Sometimes you just need punk rock - Straightforward veterans of the punk and punk-adjacent scene sometimes just spoke to us in a direct manner. That was appreciated. So I’m going to bring up these ones because they were very special to me.

• AJJ - Good Luck Everybody
  
  I never got into this band back in the day, and only finally checked them out with this album. For some reason. They were part of the Asian Man Records family just as I was moving on to different things. So I didn’t even know they were folky. But they sure have a way with lyrics, don’t they? The style makes the message come in more directly than even normal punk rock, I think. It also came out in the earlier times, but speaks so much to the mess we were already in then. Which is all still very relevant. Good luck, everybody. The mantra of 2020.
  

• Dan Potthast - Cars for Sale
  
  The MU330 frontman has been so prolific and I've tried to keep up. He's so good at speaking plainly about the heart of issues. From a position of compassion and empathy. It's like listening to your conscience. It can make you cry just to hear what you know you already know, but what has not been put so clearly using terms that understand the humanity of everyone. I don't know. In a world where everyone is so clever and cruel, it just rips it all down back to basics and that in itself is such a rebellious act, and it's a very emotional thing.

• Jeff Rosenstock - NO DREAM 
  
  I just missed Jeff Rosenstock. His projects started gaining traction just as I was more or less departing the punk scene. So it wasn't until a few years ago that I checked out his solo material even though I'd heard his name many times. And hot damn, does he bring back those feelings I had as a teenager listening to punk rock. It's got this passion and welcoming air about it. The feeling that this music gets me. It gets it, if you know what I mean. And that makes me feel less alienated, knowing someone gets how I feel these days. When everything else makes no sense and is operating on seemingly "alternative facts," it is really comforting to know you're not alone.


• Touche Amore - Lament
  
  The more hardcore side of punk rock, I'm still kind of a newbie to Touche Amore but this album rocks. It's got the screams that we all wanted to scream in this year that I keep talking about when I talk about the music of this year. Huge passion that felt like such a release of all of the frustrations at a world that doesn't care about our concerns. Turn it up. Sing along. It's that simple. You'll feel (a bit) better. This album in particular seems to be a bit more mature and varied that what I assume they sound like on other albums, with tracks like "Limelight" featuring Manchester Orchestra, and the largely acoustic, piano-driven closer "A Forecast," which speaks so directly to such relatable concerns it just feels like a moment worth mentioning. **shrug** 
  
  
• The Lawrence Arms - Skeleton Coast
  
  Maybe my favorite band of all time at this point. They've had my heart for over 20 damn years now. This may fall below Metropole on my all-time list, but I will always be happy to listen to the Lawrence Arms. Both songwriters are just so damn good now, they know what works and--who knew?--it works. And the closing track "Coyote Crown" sees Chris indulge in some guitar heroics to close it out, which is something I haven't heard from him in some time and I really want to hear this song live now.
  
  
• Coriky - Coriky
  
  The closest thing we're going to get to a new Fugazi album. It has half of them! Plus Amy Farina! It's like what you'd expect, which is The Evens but a little more tilted toward Fugazi thanks to Joe Lally's presence. It's mostly a low-key, dub-ish affair with just enough of that MacKaye fire to keep it interesting. It's always simmering, sometimes boiling over, and comforting like a bowl of soup. I don't know, that doesn't sound like a very appealing metaphor, as much as I love soup. Especially in the winter of our discontent.
  

Other cool stuff - Not everything fits into these little boxes but I still want to call them out.

• Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud
  
  I wanted to like her for so long but her music never really spoke to me, even though the reviews all got me really interested. And now she’s gone country and for some reason her voice in a country context is perfect to me. The way her vocals break up here or there, the vulnerability just sucks me right in. Then within that context it feels like a tough interior. I’ll probably have to revisit those older albums now. I’m sure what I love about this album is present on those as well, I just need to open myself up to them a bit more.
  

• The Leonard Simpson Duo - LSD
  
  This is one of those random things that I just liked. I never really paid much attention to Guilty Simpson. But with this album, he became a favorite, and I don't even know why. It's not boastful, it doesn't seem like he's trying to impress, it's almost just a conversation that happens to rhyme. But it makes me happy and it works. Leonard Charles' beats are reminiscent of the late great J Dilla, providing a very laid back foundation for some laid back, feel good rhymes. I guess there's a psychedelic aspect to it, and this is more apparent on some tracks than others, but it doesn't have to be super fancy to be awesome and this album is awesome.

• Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
  Is this where this belongs? Or old reliables? I feel like trying to put this album into any category would be a big mistake. I don't think I can say anything you haven't already read about this album, it is that good though and they are exactly right. Fiona Apple is a great singular artist with a lot to say and a really great method of saying it. Maybe her greatest album in a catalog of great albums.

And the Number One Is:

1. Moses Sumney - grae
   
   When the first part came out, I thought this might indeed be the album of the year. And then the second part came out and I thought yeah, it probably is. It became the benchmark. And nothing else met it. Because my god. This album is massive. Every aspect feels like Sumney's heart and soul were poured into it and that sounds cliche but every moment is either a giant buildup or a giant catharsis. The robotic vocal interludes sound like Laurie Anderson, but more grounded in literal conversations about Blackness. But that's about as grounded as this album gets because it soars. Put on some headphones for this one. You need to immerse yourself in it. And I don't even know how to describe the music. I don't really want to anyway. The genre is Moses Sumney and it is has as big of an emotional heft as 2020 required. Does that make sense? Does any of this? My only aim is to talk it up enough to get you to check it out for yourself. It's just all the things. Personal, communal, devastating, beautiful. And entirely unique.

Bonus Thing

Here's a Spotify playlist of my favorite tracks of the year. But I maintain, support artists directly. They need it and I need them to keep their careers going long enough to tour when this is all over.

Some Favorite Black Artists on Bandcamp

Greetings!

I haven't posted in a while but figured this would be the easiest format to share some recommendations for Bandcamp Friday. Since this blog gives me room to say as many words as I want, I might as well give some quick background. If you already know what Bandcamp Friday is, you can skip a couple paragraphs.

Bandcamp is an awesome website for purchasing music. It pays a good portion of music directly to the artists and labels when compared to other sources. Pitchfork recently posted a story about the difference it can make monetarily if you support the artists you love in this way if you would like to know more specifics.

In addition to this, Bandcamp periodically has special days where they donate all of their profit to particular charitable organizations. I remember them doing one for the ACLU a couple years back, and this Juneteenth they will be donating to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. And during the COVID-19 crisis, they have been waiving all of their shares of sales to support artists directly every first Friday of the month. Which is what tomorrow is. Or "today" if I take too long putting this together.

Beyond all this awesomeness, I just love finding unique stuff on Bandcamp. If you use Bandcamp, not only do you get a download of your purchases in whatever format you want, but you can also stream your purchases from the app. And for some reason, I enjoy music a lot more when I'm listening to that app than Spotify. Buying music makes it yours. Streaming services just feel like having free samples to me. It's hollow, it's cheap, and there's just too much.

Okay, so here is what I wanted to do. Finally getting to the point. I just wanted to highlight some of my favorite black artists with music available on Bandcamp. Not going to claim to be super cool and in the know, lots of these artists are already pretty well loved on Pitchfork or whatever. But this is what I want to listen to right now. This is who I want to support to ensure these artists can continue to do what they do. Feel free to throw a comment on here with any recommendations you may have!

I thought about trying to put descriptions and/or categories on these but changed my mind. Just check the sample tracks and see what you think. If you don't have time to check them all out, just click randomly until you see something that looks interesting to you. And buy buy buy!

• Open Mike Eagle (link is for his latest stuff, also check out his older material at here and here)
• Georgia Anne Muldrow
• Oddisee
• Xenia Rubinos
• Aye Nako
• Jean Grae (maybe fairly well known and she seems to have retired from rapping but still...some interesting things are on her bandcamp, which she sometimes takes offline so get them while the gettin's good)
• SassyBlack (you may know her as half of THEESatisfaction)
• Moses Sumney (grae may be album of the year, maybe)
• serpentwithfeet (Soil was my album of 2018)
• Baby Rose (there's just one track on bandcamp but she's so awesome)
• Noname
• Duendita
• Dua Saleh
• Shabazz Palaces

There's also a big open source list here.

And if you're on bandcamp, follow me! I don't have bandcamp friends!

Here's also a list of artists/labels donating their portion and/or putting out special releases.

Beyond that, if you've got money for music you've got money for good causes so make sure to send dollars to where they are needed most. Here's a pretty good/concise link to lots of that.

Annual Post for 2019 Music

Hello dear readers,

I imagine the best way to build up a loyal readership base is to rarely post on this thing. I don't want to overload people, you know? Well I'm sorry to interrupt my silence with the one reliable post I like to make. The music retrospective!

I wanted to list all my favorite albums of the decade but I didn't have much time for that. I still might make a list but not try to write about them yet again because I just wrote about all the things in those yearly retrospectives as well as An Ear For An Era. So it was revisited just a bit ago. I am trying to finish up my top 100 songs of the decade playlist, because that's a fun way to do things and it's somewhat related to another project I'm working on - a podcast! But that's a different entry.

2019 was a year I was on Spotify. It's a weird world. I still purchased vinyl for most of these, I'll try to do so for at least all the albums I love enough to put on a list like this. But the nice thing about streaming services is that very few of these albums are ones I would have known to check out if it wasn't so easy. Most of them were things I gave a chance on and got hooked onto. My tastes seem to be drifting off in other directions. I'm more interested in something that probably has a name but I will call singer-songwriter-R&B. Like, soul that is more of an individual statement by the artist? I don't know, but I was into a lot of that instead of my usual indie rock. And a renewed interest in punk rock, particularly that fronted by women. I guess I'm starting to get somewhat bored by bearded dudes that look like me.

I was also less into hip hop this year. I liked a few albums but none cracked this list for me. Maybe my brain just couldn't process it enough. Having said that, there are a few hip hop albums I highly recommend in the Honorable Mentions list below.

So here comes the list. There are fourteen. I'm not ranking them this year because I'm back in the "ranking something so subjective seems so silly" mode. There was also no clear #1. If it's on this list, I found it very compelling and found myself going back to it a lot this year. Call it a 14-way tie. It's in more-or-less chronological order.

Sharon van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
She took what I loved about some of her songs from previous albums and made a full album of it. Just great get-your-fists-pumping music with lots of passion and empathy. I don't have a lot of words about this but I was very into it.

Le Butcherettes - bi/MENTAL
I just found this band last year when they opened up for Hot Snakes. I was blown away by their performance. This is their first new album since then and it's a quite good payoff. Good chaos rock full of righteous rage. Empowering words, and a musical style that fits somewhere between DC angular hardcore and Detroit jangle rock and hits you in the jugular? Does that make any sense when describing a Mexican punk band?

Adia Victoria - Silences
So badass. Kind of reminds me of listening to Tom Waits, even though it's pretty different. At least vocally. I think she could play Tom Waits songs and Tom Waits could play Adia Victoria songs and I wouldn't bat an eye. There's a knowingness to her vocals and lyrics. Kind of the blues with that Waits style of drunken music that accompanies the vocals but not quite in lockstep. More of a companion that understands you and shares your world view but doesn't need to talk about it all the time.

Kelsey Lu - Blood
Kind of reminds me of why I first got into Jesca Hoop. Very similar vocal delivery. Very haunting. Probably a little more range though. Sometimes she goes off and reminds me of a singing saw. That with the strings that come naturally with her cello background feels like it's swirling around you like a tornado but not, like, damaging anything. You know?

Jamila Woods - Legacy! Legacy!
Maybe my favorite sung album of the year. And the hip hop beats just pull me along. I'm having a hard time describing why I love this album, it just feels so right. It's soul and it's hip hop and I know those genres have spent so much time together, and I don't know why this is unique but it just is. It's like nothing else even if it's like other things. Definitely making sense here.

Otoboke Beaver - Itekoma Hits
This is so fresh to me. The bursts of noise, it reminds me of the punk I was into in the early 2000s. Like Refused. That level of precision to the explosions of noise, but this is a new noise. It has a youth factor about it. It takes me back to high school even though that was half my life ago. Infectious energy with frequent start/stop tempos. I think that basically explains the awesomeness that is Otoboke Beaver.

black midi - Schlagenheim
Mathy. It gets me. From Battles to Deerhoof to The Ex, rhythm section driven chaos is extremely my jam, and we can put black midi on that list. I don't feel like working anything else about this. If you haven't heard of them but like those listed bands you should check them out.

Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains
It reminds me of great 70s singer songwriters of great wit such as Harry Nilsson and Warren Zevon, all of whom are dead. I always meant to check out Silver Jews but they remained on that list of someday. Someday passes at some point. When David Berman passed, I finally checked out his work, starting with this solo effort released very shortly before he took his leave. It's an eerie listen to hear these lighthearted songs of depression because it feels like a suicide note. But it's so catchy and inviting. It makes the whole thing so damn disturbing but irresistible.

Gauche - A People’s History of Gauche
It sounds like Sleater-Kinney at first and then it evolves into sounding like Black Eyes. Very adventurous and wonderful. I mourn the Priests hiatus just a little bit less knowing it could lead to more Gauche. Punky and funky and the right kind of off-putting.

Bleached - Don’t You Think You’ve Had Enough?
I feel like this was very underappreciated. Bleached was always very poppy in their punk, and here they leaned even further into that to a somewhat Blondie-esque sound. I loved it. The whole album is catchy, maybe catchier than most of their older stuff. And when they do decide to rock, such as on “Daydream” and the payoff of “Shitty Ballet” (a song I don’t care for until suddenly I love), it’s that much better.

Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won’t Hold
It might not be the best Sleater-Kinney album of the decade, but there was something very compelling about it that I kept listening to it. And the 1-2-3-4 punch of the last four songs beginning with “Bad Dance” is a real knockout. If that were an EP it would be right up there. It speaks so clearly to the urgency of this moment in history. I just wish it had worked out with Janet Weiss.

Baby Rose - To Myself
Uncanny how much she sounds like Nina Simone but still so modern. Beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking, and always with a haze of “cool” over everything. This would be great in a movie soundtrack to really elevate a scene of intensity

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
It’s just so vulnerable. So moving. A really heavy listen. The last album Skeleton Tree was one of my top albums of the decade and I can’t decide if this one is even better. Every time he sings the title phrase in the song “Waiting for you” I just get chills and have to stop whatever I’m doing. It might hit closer to home now that I’m  a father, and I hate to say that because great art can make you feel things regardless of your personal context. But an already amazing album is deepened by the very heavy weight of its subject matter and knowing what happened to Cave and his family. You have to be ready to listen to this, though there is no preparing for what it contains.

Kim Gordon - No Home Record
I didn’t give myself enough spins on this one, but it was so great when I did. I was always partial to the Kim songs on Sonic Youth albums, and her other projects (like all SY related side projects) were very avant garde. This solo album strikes the same balance the great SY albums have, where it’s plenty weird and interesting but there’s a pop anchor to grab onto. But very different in other ways. More electronic in an industrial sense, without sounding like anything else I’ve really listened to. Maybe brief hints of Nine Inch Nails, but it sounds very new.

Those are the ones. Here are some honorable mentions.

As mentioned above, Malibu Ken, Little Simz, Rapsody, and Danny Brown. Plus People Under The Stairs.

Mike Krol, FEELS, Uranium Club, Petrol Girls, Titus Andronicus, Yeesh, Battles.

Better Oblivion Community Center, Stella Donnelly, Wilco, Angel Olsen.

Nekhane, Helado Negro, Calexico & Iron & Wine, Bill Callahan, Jesca Hoop, Esther Rose.

Mekons, Hot Chip, Pixies, New Pornographers.

Carly Rae Jepsen, Charly Bliss, Kitty Kat Fan Club.

So What Was This 2018 In Music Anyway?

2018 was a new world for me in many ways.

I am now a father and my life is so very different in 2018. My priorities, the joy I feel, my newfound affinity for "dad rock..."

In 2018 I also finished that crazy aEfaE project, so my music listening returned to focusing on the present.

I decided to try out a streaming service at this point because aEfaE showed me that I have spent too much money on my music library and it is too big. I went with Apple Music because it would incorporate with my existing music library, except when it didn't. There are random songs missing from my library in Apple Music when I own them via legit, artist-supporting ways. Which means I have to add them if I want to listen to them on my phone, and then my itunes shows two versions of a track. So I think I might try Spotify and keep my library as a separate entity. For reference and for things that are not available on said 'fy.

But yeah, everything relating to how I consume music was different in 2018. I'm trying to figure out this new world. If I already tried to consume too much by buying too much, having access to almost everything compounds that issue. In any given week, there are at least 3-4 new albums worth checking out if I don't have to pay for them. And looking at the list below, the majority of my favorite stuff is not the obvious stuff I knew I'd like before I gave it a shot.

And I mostly only listen to music in the car on the way to/from work and daycare. Sometimes when rocking the baby to sleep. And when I was putting forth effort into working out, music was sometimes involved. But that's not enough time spent listening when there is so much music.

So in 2018, there was too much music for me to digest. If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle this in 2019, please let me know. Or I can just become one of those 35+ year-olds who doesn't bother with all this new music. Maybe I should go back to only listening to one or two genres. Or let my FOMO go and not try to hear all of the things that people like. Because this too much music thing makes it very hard to appreciate music on a deeper level, on a level that rewards repeated, devoted listening. And that's my sweet spot.

Sidenote: How come the Blogger YouTube search function sucks and doesn't come up with most of the things I'm looking for? Then I can go to YouTube and find it and use the embed HTML code to put it here? Annoying, but at least it works. I should've tried that during AEFAE.

Anyway, here is what stuck out to me.

Honorable Mentions

Or: Things I Want to Talk About But Mostly Just A Little Bit
Or: Things That Were Interesting But Not Good Enough
Or: Things That Were Probably Good Enough But I Wouldn't Know Because There Are Only So Many Hours In The Day

This section is rather large. I kind of turned it into an Ear for an Era type post, feeling the need to cover a lot of ground. But that also reflects how much darn music I consumed! There's a lot more that I did not honorably mention, mostly because I didn't have enough time to devote but is promising and maybe someday I'll hear it (yeah right).

Right away I just want to write about that compilation Dr. Demento Covered In Punk. It came out in January or so. I heard about it because "Weird Al" covered The Ramones on it. That cover was pretty well publicized, of course. But there is so much more going on here. This is a compilation of my junior high self and my high school self (as in my major development of musical taste). All the stuff from before I "liked music" and the stuff from once I "fell face first into my obsession with music." Because as I have written about in this blog, music used to be just a source of amusement for me. "Weird Al" Yankovic was the first artist I obsessively bought everything by. And it was because it was so very funny to me. Because his humor is Very Much My Humor (TM). And when I wanted a stereo with a CD player because it was a cool thing to want, and my parents were like "but you don't listen to music," my only argument was that I listened to "Weird Al" tapes. Then I got the CD player and started getting "Weird Al" CDs. But I didn't really like other music (some Presidents of the United States of America maybe, but they were also pretty novelty-heavy). Then I got some Cartoon Planet CDs when I discovered that amazing show. Which was more Very Much My Humor (TM). My first Christmas album was Dr. Demento Presents The Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time. Novelty music was the music for me. And then along came ska and with it, punk. And it was a whole different thing. And I became obsessed with music forever and now I feel the need to write a blog to keep up with it all in some way. So a compilation that combines novelty music and punk is a very personal thing to me. And it is Very Much My Humor (TM). And the punk is very much legit punk. In 1998 this compilation would have totally blown my mind. In 2018, this compilation totally blows my mind. I only like around half the songs (hence it only being an Honorable Mention), but I don't care. The fact that this exists is insanity to me. Talking too deeply about it seems like it ruins it though. It's best to listen to it blind, not knowing what's coming up, and taking it in. But I will just say that Brak's cover of "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies is maybe the most perfect culmination of what this CD aims to be, and it really seems like the song was written specifically for Brak.

Brak "Institutionalized"

And that is more than I will talk about anything else in this blog post.

Some other bands/artists from my past put out some fun music as well. The Smoking Popes' original lineup had their first album in 20ish years. It includes some very Popesy gems as well as some cheesy songs. Cursive put out their first album with a cello (though not with that cellist) in 15ish years and it's probably their best album in that period (though it's been something of a rocky period). I certainly enjoyed it more than their last several albums. Hot Snakes had a big reunion and continued to be as awesome as ever. I went to the show for that one.

Titus Andronicus and of Montreal each put out full length albums consisting of a few long tracks. In Titus Andronicus' case, it was enjoyable and loose, though some of those songs went on too long. As for of Montreal, it was their best album in a while.

Oddly enough, I quite enjoyed the new one by The Good, The Bad, and The Queen. I say "oddly" because I had begun to reach Damon Albarn Fatigue with those last couple Gorillaz albums and I wasn't particularly into the first TGTBaTQ album. But I'll be damned.

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit. That was an interesting concept and a couple of the songs were truly awesome. I'm excited to see where this project goes! Next year they're touring with Deafheaven; they are pretty reliably awesome and this year was no exception. I also was really into that Sumac album.

There is a weird lineage of awesome rock that goes from Sleater-Kinney (obviously awesome) to Wild Flag (not too surprisingly awesome) to Ex Hex (starting to get the idea here, awesome) to Bat Fangs (who I just stumbled upon not having known of their existence, but it was exactly what I was expecting). Their self titled album (are any of these bands going to put out a second album? or does it matter because we are still consistently getting awesome music under different variations of similar concepts?) is obviously great. I just can't wait for whatever random band offshoots from Bat Fangs!

I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed Big Red Machine. I almost didn't even bother adding it to my library because members of The National have so many side projects going that it's not really worth trying to keep up. And Justin Vernon has a few projects of his own. But damn, did all involved create something unique and beautiful.

I never really got into the music of John Spencer. I remember when "Weird Al" directed a John Spencer Blues Explosion music video and that piqued my interest but it didn't go anywhere because I mostly just wanted punk rock at the time. And years later, the song in Baby Driver was rad. Then late this year, he put out an album called Spencer Sings the Hits. Since Spencer is my son's name, I thought it would be amusing on some level to check it out. Plus I saw a review of this album that made it sound awesome. And it turns out it is awesome. Just trashy dirty awesome rock and roll that I crave.

What a year it was for hip hop, eh? In addition to some of the stuff in the real list, there was just so much and I'm still not very good at writing about it. But Knife Knights' 1 Time Mirage was something special. Kind of a side project for Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces, it had the jams and headiness I like from them. What else? Well, Dr. Octagon's actual return was overlooked by pretty much everybody. Not like it was an especially great album but there was a track with Deltron 3030 so that was awesome. I think Kool Keith has been pretty reliably great the last couple years. Of course, Black Thought put out his first solo material and both of those EPs are just bars and bars from the best. And Earl Sweatshirt seems to really be elevating the game on Some Rap Songs. Noname came out with Room 25 and the description was exactly what I'd been searching for and really delivered on that promise. I still haven't seen the movie Sorry to Bother You but the soundtrack album (EP?) by The Coup was fantastic, with Tune-Yards' fingerprints all over it. Just so much energy. I didn't fall as heavily for Vince Staples' new one but no matter, it's one of his "in between" years when he puts out something minor. To me it just sounded like a good rap album as opposed to some genre defying masterpiece.

Jean Grae and Quelle Chris put out an album together called Everything's Fine. It was a lot of fun and had comedians doing guest spots and such, but I just wished there had been more Jean Grae on it!

I came back to that Kilo Kish EP quite a bit this year as well. I'm assuming she's going to put out something amazing in the near future.

Oh, and all-time favorite Elvis Costello. I think Look Now is at least his best since The Delivery Man. That was his first official album with The Imposters. This one really catches the sound of The Imposters as their own entity. The groove of the bass. And the songs and the words. He's always got some lyrical gems and they are plentiful here, especially in those ballads.

I was destined to have a soft spot for the new one from Phosphorescent, C'est La Vie. I had a soft spot for his previous album, and this time he's singing about fatherhood. And it seems very dorky when he sings about "thinking about another beer." And I am on board with that. Thinking about another beer and maybe an order of jalapeno poppers for me and my friends, you know? I can't think of anything about Phosphorescent that should make the music stand out to me. But I love it. And this was an album I listened to on multiple occasions with my own beautiful baby boy, trying to get him to fall asleep. He seemed to like it ok too.

As I write this, I'm hearing Lucy Dacus' Historian for the first time. There was too much to check out and some things had to slip! So I first heard her when there was all that hype around boygenius. That EP is wonderful, though it didn't quite grab me like it seemed to grab everyone else. But it is just the type of thing I could find myself loving after spending enough time with it. Now the Dacus album is starting to pick up. I really like this. If I'd spent proper time with it I could see it being on the "real" list below. Oh, and now the song "The Shell" is hitting me a little too close to home. Damn.

I have to call out another very special record called Childqueen by Kadhja Bonet. One of those things I just found by restlessly browsing through said streaming service for something unique and awesome. Following layers of "you might also like." This record is like a beautiful score musically and evokes this bizarre feeling of being in an old cartoon or something, in a meadow with a smiling sun. You know, that type of music.

One really cool album that impresses me every time I listen to it is Ultraviolet by Kelly Moran. This is usually the type of thing that I like more in theory than in practice. Heavily improvised, experimental music created by modifying a piano. I can't tell you how many experimental/improvisational albums I've purchased because it sounds like it's something I should like (not that I don't like these, I just usually listen to them once or twice and then am never in the mood to pull them back out). This is really cool though. It's accessible. Kind of like Battles, in that it's experimental music that is just catchy to me and I can listen to it whenever. It should be the soundtrack to a horror movie (particularly the track "Helix") except that would be doing a disservice to the music, which stands so strong on its own that I wouldn't want some cheesy visuals trying to keep up.

Kelly Moran "Helix (Edit)"

And the Top 7 Albums of 2018 In My Ears Are:

Or: Why we're here
Or: The word of the year is Relatable.

Why 7? In honor of my beautiful baby, who is my parents' seventh grandchild and whose three names each have seven letters. And also because it is the cutoff for truly killer material that I was able to absorb enough to know was killer.

7. Open Mike Eagle - What Happens When I Try to Relax (buy it!)
It's an EP. But it feels like a new era for Open Mike Eagle (partially because this is the first release of his new record label). The production just seems more...dynamic. But the lyrical cleverness is still there. And a word that shall be used to describe all of the albums on this list is the song that kicks it all off.

Open Mike Eagle "Relatable (Peak OME)"

6. Robyn - Honey
It's delicate. It's a grower. Robyn has grown beyond the sass that has defined much of her sound. But the sincerity is still there, making it particularly relatable. Maybe even moreso than last time around. Robyn is a treasure. Didn't we all miss Robyn? That first track "Missing U" starts off and immediately puts you in the mood for some Robyn jams. Then it quiets down a bit and gets very personal. This might be my favorite track:

Robyn "Because It's In The Music"

5. Troye Sivan - Bloom (buy it!)
Is it weird that I'm ranking this kid above Robyn? I feel a little weird doing it. But Bloom is a very beautiful album that does a lot of the stuff I love about Robyn's music. It's the earnestness in the pop. It makes me feel the way Body Talk made me feel. But make no mistake, this is pure, no-qualifiers-pop. Do I finally "like" pop music? Did I just take the longest journey to come around this way? Maybe I should've given that Ariana Grande album a chance while I was at it! Oh yeah, and it's relatable.

Troye Sivan "Animal"

4. Mitski - Be the Cowboy (buy it!)
Another artist that critics have always loved and I didn't quite spend enough time with. But this time I did! Be the Cowboy is great! All the shifting tones and moods and everything, all the catchiness beyond that, and it's hella relatable. Even as she went less personal than previous albums, it is so universal and it feels like she's singing about herself because it feels like she's singing about all of us.

Mitski "Nobody"

3. Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
I just deleted a fairly large paragraph I'd written about this. I just listened to the album again and had some things I wanted to say. Monae has always been one of my absolute favorites and anticipation for this album was very high. So it was bound to be a little bit disappointing when there was no jam that hit the highs of some of her older songs such as "Dance Apocalyptic" and "Tightrope." But really, not sure if anyone has hit those highs ever. My initial disappointment was also in its being more accessible than previous efforts. But ironically, it still grew on me. Just in a different way. Easy to love, and a breezier listen than the older albums (not as many ballads, just jam after jam after jam). But the main thing I'm getting to after writing another paragraph worth of nonsense is that this album sounds like freedom. It's got so many great messages of acceptance and love and exercising freedom. And while a couple of the songs have a couple cheesy lines and I still think the closing track is extra cheesy and sounds too happy, it's also perfect for that same reason. It's accessible. And when I saw her perform live this summer (one of the few shows I made it out to this year), it made me a believer in that. It's a message that needs to get out to everyone so it needs to be accessible and relatable to all. No elitism. (And "Django Jane" gets really close to those aforementioned highs)

Janelle Monae "I Like That"

2. U.S. Girls - In A Poem Unlimited
I first heard of U.S. Girls when they did a remix of PRIESTS, a definite standout in 2017. Not that I cared much for the remix. And once I came to streamland, I checked out this album and did not immediately particularly care for it. But then I kept trying. I gave it a bunch of chances. I think I knew there was something there that I had to keep trying. And I put a bunch of the songs on my workout mix. And eventually it paid off. Every song on this album is such a jam, I don't know how I found it so unapproachable before. Something something relatable.

U.S. Girls "M.A.H."

1. serpentwithfeet - soil (buy it!)
When I first asked a friend if he'd heard this album, he said "isn't it kind of weird?" But of course. It is very weird. And maybe it makes up for the rest of my list being dominated by actual pop music. I'm still into weird stuff! It's mostly a capella but has as full of a sound as anything else. The passion that comes through every second of this album was enough to draw me in, first out of curiosity for all the sounds and what they were doing, and then keep me coming back. The intense emotion plays out in a way that anyone who has loved deeply and lost deeply can't help but find it relatable. If you've ever struggled to breathe due to that grief, the sound of all those voices really sounds and feels like a breath of fresh air, and such a release at the same time.

serpentwithfeet "mourning song"

There. Don't I have some great taste in music?!

An Ear For An Era: 2017

And just like that, after so many years and so many songs and so many more songs, I have reached my last AEFAE. Series finale. Or whatever. I started this partly because I realized I had an excessive amount of music but couldn't decide what to listen to. And now I'll come right back upon that conundrum. I think now that I'm a bit older though I'll spend more time listening to stuff I just know I like. There is a lot of that and it is a place to begin.

What happened in 2017...hmmm...for some reason there was a lot of protest music. Yeah. And my wife got pregnant with our son. He was born this February so he has been taking up most of my energy for the past 3 months. But that's 2018. Which will not be written about here because it's not over yet.

Music was good in 2017. I came around to the fact that in general, hip hop has been more groundbreaking lately than the rock I have held so dear. But there was some top notch music from both camps. But why am I separating them? Music is easy to categorize as this or that but there can be thematic threads through different genres and eras and time is a loop!

Music was not as good as I would hope though. Because all of the '7s in this thing have been exceptional, but 2017 was the exception to that. Still a good number of good-to-great albums came out.

Is this the longest intro thing I've done? I gotta save some bytes for the outro!

Lots of bytes have been spent on the Our First 100 Days collection (compilation?), consisting of 100 songs that were released a day at a time for the first 100 days of 45's presidency. As would be expected from 100 songs, there are hits and lesser hits. Angel Olsen and Jens Lekman were the highlights for me. And there was the Battle Hymns compilation which had a bunch of artists I like singing songs that were a bit on the nose for the most part.

A much more relevant protest album to me was Nothing Feels Natural by PRIESTS. I missed their live show last night because I have a cold. Just thought I'd throw that in here since I'm writing about them today. But this was the most interesting rock album of the year for me. Just a wild ride.

Priests "Appropriate"

Jesca Hoop followed up her collab album with Sam Beam with Memories Are Now. I came back around to Jesca Hoop recently. I've always been into her music but it started to blur together for me for a bit, but this one sounds special to me.

Nicole Atkins had a very similar trajectory to Jesca Hoop in my eyes. I discovered both around the same time, and while they are not very similar in style they both fell off briefly with me before coming back with a vengeance in 2017. Goodnight Rhonda Lee is a simply great album. "A Little Crazy" is instantly in my top Nicole Atkins songs, as she really wails as only she can.

Nicole Atkins "A Little Crazy"

Life Will See You Now, the latest from Jens Lekman, was one of my favorites. As his albums always are. I don't know how to explain how this one is special, it's just a bunch of slices of people's lives told in beautiful ways. When "Evening Prayer" came on while I was driving, it just hit me so strongly that I teared up a bit. It's just so relatable that I could put myself into the story and then be devastated by it.

Dirty Projectors' self titled album was interesting. It gets ruined a little by the condescending tone of the lyrics, but the music is really cool. It had contributions from Tyondai Braxton and that blends really well with the vocals and other experiments.

Stephin Merritt's latest project as The Magnetic Fields was his 50 Song Memoir. It was interesting to hit that as part of my musical memoir-ish project. It is a great collection of songs, some of which are amongst my favorite Merritt tracks. That alone is quite an accomplishment after all these years.

Spoon continues to astound with Hot Thoughts. I listened to it a bunch last year and when I revisited it here I realized that they had secretly thrown in a bunch of new Spoon classics. I was so used to songs like Shotgun and Can I Sit Next to You that I didn't realize they were new ones. Spoon, the most consistent band in rock. Pretty sure.

Another favorite indie band of a few years ago that put out more music in 2017 was Fleet Foxes. Crack-Up was a lovely album that I really need to spend more time with than this project allowed. One thing I'm looking forward to with the freedom of not doing this is listening to stuff like this more.

Deerhoof never goes out of style for me. Mountain Moves was their most overtly political album with covers of songs like Freedom Highway by The Staples Singers and Small Axe by Bob Marley. It also has a bunch of guests, something Deerhoof hasn't really done before.

LCD Soundsystem reunited and put out an album called american dream. It seems like it's theoretically as great as their older albums but has not reached those levels for me. Maybe I just need to give it more time. Or maybe it's just great, not exceptionally great?

Sleep Well Beast is one of the more inventive albums The National has put out. And that one song sounds like a really good Pulp song. That's what I remember I wanted to write/joke when I first heard it.

The Hanged Man by Ted Leo is an interesting one. It's less punk and more...Elvis-Costello-or-Nick-Lowe-esque? He experiments with some weird harmonies and choruses and toward the back half of the album I just realized it really sounded like those favorites of the late 70s.

St Vincent! MASSEDUCTION was an odd one. It's nowhere near as great as her s/t album but I appreciate her direction on this one. But the sexy sounds of half the album just really brings attention to how great her ballads are. Songs like New York and Happy Birthday, Johnny remind me of great Tom Waits or Lou Reed songs. But I want her to shred some guitar on her next album.

St Vincent "New York"

One more indie band I feel kind of obligated to write about is Arcade Fire. Helloooooo, backlash. I was lashing back at these guys back at Neon Bible, but now that everyone has caught up and hated on Everything Now, I kind of want to defend them. Oddly, when I listened to it first I got through the first 4 tracks (including the title track, Signs of Life, and Creature Comfort) before I got to work. At that point I was ready to say that this is a solid album and people are getting picky about silly things. Then Peter Pan came on on the drive home and it felt like a slog through the middle section of the album before ending somewhat strongly for the last couple songs. What I wanted to say early though was that you just have to take this band on their terms. You can't cynically go in with a bad attitude, you have to just immerse yourself. That's how Reflektor was to me. But this one...yeah, hit and miss.

Kendrick Lamar has yet to miss and he hit us all pretty hard with DAMN. (how's that for a segue?) When I first heard the album, I was mostly taken by how much it just sounds like a collection of songs. Of course, that was all surface level and it turned out to be another masterpiece with themes running through it and a flow. Plus all the bangers on it. Plus the whole thing where playing it with the track order reversed makes it make even more sense front to back (I ended this project by listening to this album backward. I think I preferred it this way).

I can't say why I enjoy Oddisee so much, but The Iceberg is a special album to me. It almost reminds me of some of the indie 90sish hip hop I used to listen to.

Shabazz Palaces only reminds me of Shabazz Palaces, even though dude was in an actual 90s indieish hip hop group. The two separately released but complementary albums Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star and Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines are very dense but I think I'm finally starting to get to where I can appreciate them. So again, more music to listen to more!

Vince Staples continues the trend of hip hop that's not even really hip hop at this point other than the rapping. Big Fish Theory is a straight up great electronic album.

Open Mike Eagle continues to be the rapper I most enjoy lyrically, and Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is just another pile of reasons for that.

I listened to a few things only once, since I had acquired them at the end of the year and I was trying to get this project done. But I need to pay a lot more attention to the following:
Waxahatchee
Algiers
Charlotte Gainsbourg (really excited about this one, IRM was one of my favorites)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (rest in power, Sharon Jones! I am not happy that there is no more new music to hear from you.)
Slowdive
gSp

So that's it. Thanks for reading. What have I learned?

• Not as much as I was hoping to learn. When I was working through the 70s I was excited that I was becoming so aware of what albums came out in what years, but I've lost all that knowledge among the mess that was the 21st century. There's just way too much.
• I learned I have more music than I can listen to in 4 years (was it 4 years?)
• The early 70s weren't so bad and 1973 was actually very great!
• Even 1997, the one that I thought was going to break my theory of '7s, was when I really got into independent music and it also had OK Computer.
• I need to listen to an album repeatedly to really "get" it. It's hard to write about something after I listened to it once 4 weeks ago.
•  I am excited to listen to whatever I want to. New and old. Shuffling stuff.
• That new Janelle Monae album has been waiting for me.
• See you in December when I say something about 2018! But it won't be An Ear For An Era! The end of an.......................era.

An Ear For An Era: 2016

Remember 2016? Sure you do. It was so recent. Yet so long ago.

A tense time, a sad time, a time with a few breaks from the sad tension...

We did go to Universal Studios and the Simpsons area they have there. That was great. And we went to Germany, which was legendarily great. In January, we took a short vacation to Florida and an even shorter two-night cruise to the Bahamas. It was on that cruise ship when we found out that David Bowie had died.

And that just kind of kicked off the year that would be 2016.

Blackstar by Bowie is about as great a swan song as any artist has delivered. It has the sounds of a restless artist putting everything out there in a final purge of energy. A scream, not a sigh. Jazz and industrial and rock and whatever words you use when you describe Bowie's career in full. It's all there. And yet, there was probably more in there lost to the afterlife. The last song is called "I Can't Give Everything Away." Even so, he gave more than most any artist in our lives. I can't say enough even though I've said nothing. Bowie.

David Bowie "I Can't Give Everything Away"

Iggy Pop recorded an album with Josh Homme called Post Pop Depression. It was great and inventive and I spent much of the year worrying he would join his compatriots in the afterlife. Especially since last time I saw him live (I can't believe I have seen him three times!) he talked a bit about probably not being much longer for this world. But he continues. And Post Pop Depression is an awesome album. But even that album title!

Savages are a kind of direct descendent of Iggy Pop's post punk innovations, and their second album Adore Life is super engaging and makes me want to go to 1979 in Germany or something.

I feel like people didn't freak out enough about Emily's D+Evolution by Esperanza Spalding. I know it got some rave reviews, which was why I decided to give it a shot when it eventually hit the $5 bin. But I just finally listened to it now and wow. This is so much. It's funky, it's post punk, it's so much in addition to the "jazz" label. Not that jazz has limitations. But as much as I heard she was branching out or whatever, I did not expect this. I need to listen to it more times.

Freetown Sound by Blood Orange was another great singular vision of high creativity. Usually something with as many guests as this would feel a bit scattered, but this was a clear statement and so of the times in 2016 (and today, it's only 2 years later after all, things don't change that fast...).

Another respite from the challenges of living in 2016 was Welcome the Worms by Bleached. Pop punk in the true sense of the word is the catchiest music to me. And no song was in my head in 2016 as much as "Wednesday Night Melody."

Bleached "Wednesday Night Melody"

And back to sadness of losing great artists. Do I write about Charles Bradley here? He lived until 2017 which puts him outside the class of 2016, but he put out his final album Changes that year and it was really something. Screaming eagle indeed, his voice was unrivaled in its passion.

Perhaps my favorite album of 2016 (there were two frontrunners and I'm going to go ahead and exercise my right to not pick a #1) was created by someone who is fortunately still around, but an exploration of loss in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. I'm speaking of Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Every song on the album gives me deep feelings of love, loss, dread, and a little bit of hope. It is a masterwork. If Cave were someone besides Nick Cave, it would be a career defining album. But his catalog is so vast and incredible that I can't even attempt to quantify that. But in a year like 2016, this was (potentially tied for) the greatest thing an artist could release.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Girl in Amber"

Leonard Cohen had already teased the idea of dying when he was promoting You Want It Darker, but it was still a shock when he departed shortly after its release. But he went in the way of Johnny Cash, with a string of late career masterpieces on the way out (only Cohen stuck with original compositions the whole way through). You Want It Darker was everything you want from the master. Funny, reflective, intelligent, and yes, darker.

Hip hop in 2016 was kind of amazing. To briefly shift gears from the people we lost in 2016, there were great hip hop albums by Chance the Rapper, Aesop Rock, and De La Soul. Particularly De La Soul. ...And The Anonymous Nobody was a great comeback/re-introduction/modernization of a classic crew.

And then there was Danny Brown. Atrocity Exhibition is an album that I hesitate to call a hip hop album because to my ears the only thing that makes it hip hop is the rapping. The music itself is a combination of post punk and industrial and electronic and all sorts of influences.

And Run The Jewels, that's always good. RTJ3 came out on Christmas or something like that, so it basically counts as 2016.

But of course the other best album of 2016 was a reunion and a farewell and a wake for a fallen artist. Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest left this world but not before recording We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. Furious but hopeful, pushing boundaries in a way that evokes their classic 90s output while still sounding fresh, it's almost like a debut album in how much energy and purpose it has. This is not the album 2016 deserves, but it's the album we need after a year like 2016.

A Tribe Called Quest "We The People"

And I also have to mention...
Prince. Technically no 2016 music so all I can say is thank you for your service.
Sharon Jones. (She had a posthumous 2017 album though, so we'll talk about her next time)

Other Things:

• The Falcon - Gather Up The Chaps. The kind of sort of maturity of the latest Lawrence Arms album kind of sort of reflects onto this album but also not. I like The Falcon.
• Open Mike Eagle - Hella Personal Film Festival. Continuing to evolve and be great.
• ANOHNI sang a lot about drones and death and destruction on Hopelessness. A beautiful and sad album reminding us that Obama was still deeply flawed, which can be a hard thing to fathom now in 2018.
• Midwest Farmer's Daughter by Margo Price is beautiful, yes it is. Artists like this are why I can never write off "modern country music." 
• Kendrick Lamar's untitled throwaways are gold!
• Santigold's album 99 Cents was kind of a stark contrast to the general bummer of 2016 with some positivity and fun. It was good to have a break.
• case/lang/veirs was a great reminder of this Neko Case fan of how great K.D. Lang is.
• Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop put out a collaborative album and I liked it like I like both of them. Great complementary voices!
• Frank Ocean doesn't belong down here but I don't have time to write about Blonde enough. I really need to listen to it a bunch more times anyway.
• Kool Keith had a pretty great comeback in 2016 with Feature Magnetic.
• I quite liked Hypercaffium Spazzinate by The Descendents. 
• Dan P's music is really good for playing for my son.
• Avalanches returned! It was lots of fun! Danny Brown works well for their style.
• Bon Iver went off the deep end (in a great way) with 22, A Million.
• This:

Mac McCaughan "Happy New Year (Prince Can't Die Again)"

Next Time:
2017 shall be the last one of these, it would appear. Not soon enough, as it's near impossible to find time to write this and update playlists with a newborn around. 2017 was the year of...stuff. I think it broke the '7 narrative I've been building in this thing. I think 2016 was better. I still need to work out what the highlights actually were though.

An Ear For An Era: 2015

Hello Again, Dear Reader!

Reader, can I call you Reader? 2015 was a year, you see, where we were all so innocent (not really) and things were so much simpler (or more complicated) and we hadn't yet entered the hellscape of a Bowie-less world (and other such disappointing developments of 2016). 2016 is modern music, current music, in 2018. But 2015 is the end of an era.

Another randomly sorted list of things. Well the sorting is more or less similar to release date, in that my stuff is sorted by quarter. So alphabetically by album, but divided by quarter. That's how I've been doing this thing for a while now.

Most notably these items:
I guess I'll just happen to start off with what is likely #1 album of the year for me. It was for a lot of people I think. Sufjan Stevens' devastating Carrie & Lowell. Sad sad songs about a mother or the idea of a mother or something, of confusion and growing up. The thing that was most striking listening to this album now was that in the time since,  I have seen him live twice, and he's put out a live album and a kind of remix mixtape thingy. New and exciting interpretations of these songs that I love. And then you come back to the original takes, the spare arrangements of this album and it just makes it hit that much harder.

Sufjan Stevens "Blue Bucket of Gold"

Belle & Sebastian seemed to be trying to shed their twee image once and for all with Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance. (Aww, remember peacetime but not really peacetime, let's not romanticize that time too much now?) Not that they'd been particularly twee for some time by now, but this one had moments where they just straight up played dance pop. Good times. This was also the album that I finally saw them on tour for, and it was a show at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Which was awesome. Charles Bradley opened for that show, which was about as amazing as you could want. But I'm talking about Belle & Sebastian. They are a perennial favorite.

That reminds me of something I wanted to talk about for 2015. Not that it was some great revelation, but 2015 really seemed to mark the point where I spent most of my new music budget on those perennial favorites, regardless of what all the cool new critics were saying was cool and new. I still checked out a few new critical darlings probably, but I'm getting older and only have so much time and I know what I like. (Breaking the format of going in that order now to talk about things). Bands like The Go! Team, Modest Mouse, The Mountain Goats (though they keep changing things up and putting out albums about  wrestling and whatnot), Calexico, Jim O'Rourke, Hot Chip, Built to Spill, Battles, Wilco, !!! and Mercury Rev didn't get a ton of critical attention but they are part of the class of bands/musicians that I feel like will never let me down and put out solid B+ albums on a regular basis forever.

I'm going to talk about Sleater-Kinney separately here because No Cities to Love did not feel like a band that has put out a bunch of albums. And it was something of a reunion. But it has such freshness about it. The Woods probably would have counted in that other category, but No Cities to Love sounds almost like a debut album with its energy levels and complete awesomeness (though with some veteran musicians at the top of their game).

Courtney Barnett sure is a fresh voice in this world, isn't she? She seems to share a lot of DNA with Jonathan Richman, from the high level of wit in the lyrics (with a good amount of heart) to the speak-sing vocals to the long album titles (Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit). I just thoroughly enjoy just sitting and listening to her music.

The other highly regarded album of the year shortlister was of course Kendrick Lamar, whose To Pimp a Butterfly was some next level stuff, particularly in the mainstreamish line he tows. All of the Thundercat jazzy stuff, recurring motifs, thoughtful interludes and bursts of creative energy, it really is something special. I remember in 2015 I thought it was a good album but that it didn't have enough songs that could qualify as straight-up songs to quite stick with me. The revisit I just did with this project changed my mind though, as things do. Everything had stuck into my mind and unearthing that was really cool.

There was another very special record that I insisted on listening to twice (as I put it in a Facebook post, revisiting 2015 requires listening to it more than once), and that was E-mo-tion by Carly Rae Jepsen, and I don't even care what that looks like. Yes, she is hipster-approved pop, so it's not like I'm super courageous to be declaring my love for it, but damn does it sound good. To sing along to, to exercise to, to let it just dig into your brain and hum it all day. You gotta listen to it more than once.

Carly Rae Jepsen "Run Away With Me"

My final major highlight, from the final quarter of 2015, was Art Angels by Grimes. At first I was skeptical when this great experimental producer/musician went all-out pop, but it is so infectious that I don't mind. And there are still interludes and postludes and odd song structures that prove her avant bonefides and keep me wanting more and more.

Other highly notable items

• THEESatisfaction - EarthEE - Bold, engaging, I think it matches the last album in terms of quality. they will be missed!
• Father John Misty probably counts as someone who was new and cool with critics even though he came from the world of Fleet Foxes (who were still relatively new compared to those 20 year old bands). I Love You, Honeybear is a pretty great record. I like his ranty old man character he takes on.
• John Carpenter's Lost Themes is an awesome collection of jams.
• The Sonics came back after forever and put out This Is the Sonics, which is a title that reminds me of their album titles from the 60s. Lots of fun garage rock as one might expect from the almighty Sonics.
• I picked up Apocalypse, Girl by Jenny Hval because I apparently had money to burn at the record store (and the cover amused me, and it was on the reliable Sacred Bones records, and I looked it up really quick and it had good reviews, and I like nordic stuff in general). But was I ever glad I did. This album sounds great on headphones, reminds me of Laurie Anderson or something.
• Downtown Boys are real good.
• Old reliable Kermit Ruffins put out a hashtag album called   #imsoneworleans and I don't even care.   The music's great so whatever!
• Desaparecidos came back so I'm sure everything was going fine politics-wise.
• Vince Staples deserves more than a bullet point for his double album but I'm neglectful.
• Georia Anne Muldrow actually rapped on her album A Thoughtiverse Unmarred. And I dig it quite a bit!
• Both Beach House albums made for some good headphone listening.
• CHVRCHES are real good too y'all. More of that pop music.
• MEOW THE JEWELS.
• One tragedy of this strategy was that the really dense albums I couldn't give enough time in 2015 didn't get any less dense, so they still didn't get enough attention on revisit. Remind me to give The Most Lamentable Tragedy by Titus Andronicus a lot more attention in the near future (and yes, I know they have a new one coming out!)
• Dilly Dally is a very interesting band that I'm hoping to hear more from soon.

Next Time:

I feel like 2016 was pretty epic, if nothing else. Many terrible things happened. Lots of great music came out though. Bowie of course, De La Soul, Danny Brown, Frank Ocean, Blood Orange, The Falcon, Open Mike Eagle, Run The Jewels, Solange, Nick Cave, A Tribe Called Quest, Avalanches, Leonard Cohen, Bon Iver, et al.