Top 25 Albums of 2019

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My favorite albums of 2019 are here! As happened with the Top 100 Songs of 2019, there really wasn’t a clear cut winner for me. I almost wanted to give it to Vampire Weekend for being so damn consistent, but their album was too long with a few weak tracks that kept them out of the #1 ranking.

After some debate, I realized the album that I enjoyed the most was PUP’s Morbid Stuff. It’s one of those great rock albums, and PUP is such a fun and loud band that loves being loud. They’re the musical man child of Japandroids and New Found Glory. Their live shows must be nuts.

As for the remainder of albums, there’s a number of notables, including my favorite newcomer (for me), Rex Orange County, a singer/songwriter without a great voice or much notable traits that I can point to other than the fact that he sounds like his own. It’s not always about some amazing voice or guitar licks, sometimes it’s just being yourself that makes music so great.

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Monday Mixtape, Vol. 115

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The surprise of the weekend was seeing that Hippo Campus released their sophomore album, Bambi, on Friday. And what an album! The lead singer reminds me of Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, but their melodies are a bit more out there, I’m not really sure they sound like anyone else. Their second album shows some subtleties in songwriting that show the band’s growth. This is an album that flows from front to back with slow jams bookending the albums intersected by waves of rhythms and tempos. What I’m trying to say is just listen to it!

My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel released his second album and this “Wished Out” track immediately reminded me of The Allman Brothers Band. Never a bad thing.

I’ve gotten on a bit of a Jeff Tweedy kick recently, one because he’s such a great lyricist, two because he’s in one the best (and most underrated) bands of the past two decades, and three because his solo album of acoustic Wilco tracks is phenomenal (it’s called Together at Last - check it out!). Tweedy has a voice that finds a place in the hollows of the acoustic guitar. This is his most recent solo effort.

Speaking of voices I love, Thom Yorke released a track from what I hope is an upcoming solo album, and Bright Light Social Hour (whose vocalist’s solo album I had on last week’s mixtape) released a new track for all to hear, the spacey “Trip with Lola.”

Finally, the killer three-piece jazz band, BADBADNOTGOOD, who do a ton tracks with rappers and bands, have just released a track with Little Dragon, and it’s a “raise your lighters” type of jam.

That’s all I got folks, enjoy!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 56 (and Radiohead album review)

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A Moon Shaped Pool is a dark confessional, most likely about the ending of his relationship with his girlfriend of 23 years. This album is a mini-orchestra with horns, cellos, violins, who knows what else. It all starts with the first notes - the strings - of the album on "Burn the Witch. "

It's further explored on "Daydreaming" and all of the orchestral elements come to an unforgettable crescendo on the most delicate song of the album, the wandering "Glass Eyes":

And the path trails off and heads down a mountain through the dry bush. I don't know where it leads and I don't really care.

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