2019 Music: Top 25 Albums of the Year

So just to recap for those who've just joined, we listened to a grand total in the general region of 1000 albums released this year and I've whittled my favourites down to a top 25 (plus honourable mentions, below). I make no pretence about this being an objective "best of" list, but these are the 25 albums that I've enjoyed the most in 2019.

25) Ilana (The Creator) - Mdou Moctar (Tuareg Rock)

Kicking off my albums writeup with the maker of my #1 song of 2019: I had in my mind before revisiting my top albums that it was one highlight track from an otherwise so-so album. But, in fact, Moctar’s electrified Tuareg folk is pretty kicking throughout this whole album. I think he really unleashes his full power in “Tarhatazed” but there’s a great old-meets-new aesthetic throughout this, and it’s enjoyable just as pure upbeat rock music as well.

24) Truth Power - NEEDSHES (Uzbek Art Rock)

Wow I seem like a big ‘world music’ guy with my first two picks. I’m not familiar enough with the Uzbek rock scene to know if NEEDSHES has a sound typical of that scene or the culture generally, but if they do then we all need more Uzbek music in our life. This is just really dynamic, driving power rock with a great offbeat sound to a lot of the chords. The only shortcoming is that the album, and the songs, are quite short and don’t quite allow themselves the room to expand and build.

23) Chrysaline - Josh Garrels (Christian Folktronica)

This is no doubt an odd album to find on an atheist’s top 25 of the year, but I’m honestly not averse to a bit of Jesus in my music, particularly when it’s as richly textured and pure in its delivery as this is. The main criticism I do have – and it is largely driven by my not being as gung-ho for Jesus as Mr. Garrels obviously is – is that the whole album is very slow, very devotional, and could use a few moments of levity; it’s hard to maintain my enthusiasm for Jesus for this long.

22) Artemis - Lindsey Stirling (Classicaltronica)

The follow-up to my #4 album of 2016 from Lindsey Stirling, this was an album destined for this list. This is another very solid album of violin virtuosity over solid dance beats and electronic pop, with a few more vocal performances blended in as well. The main trouble is that this isn’t really much of a departure from the previous album, so even though I dig everything Lindsey plays, it’s just hard to get fully excited about another full album of the same kind of stuff. I should note you’ll hear a bit more from the artist who beat Lindsey into my #3 spot of 2016 later on in this post, and there’s a clear reason he’s ahead again.

21) Lucid - Asa (Pop RnB)

I always like a good bit of RnB, and between this and Ciara’s “Beauty Marks” (which just missed this list) there were a good couple of albums from solo RnB artists this year. Despite Ciara also having a couple of highly-rated songs (and the highest-ranked on my top 100, at #28), this one makes the cut because I really enjoy Asa’s slightly reggae and afrobeat vibes that she sprinkles throughout. It’s a good variety of different RnB flavours regardless, and consistently delivers some interesting twists on the genre. 

20) In the Morse Code of Brake Lights - New Pornographers (Indie Rock)

The New Pornographers’ previous album in 2017 kind of flew under the radar for me, but one of the main reasons it did that is because it was released in an amazingly dense week of music (that yielded two top twenty songs of the year for me, from other artists). So I really enjoyed getting to know this one, despite the fact that this only won runner-up album of its week (with the winner still to come). It’s full of innovative, lively pop rock music that, due to the talent of the musicians involved in this group, has a really interesting ensemble vibe throughout.

19) HAETHOR - Amy Owens (Operatic Pop)

For a large part of this year, this album was earmarked for a much higher position than it finds itself in. Similar to Lindsey Stirling, this is a quirky juxtaposition of two unrelated genres, pairing Amy Owens’ powerful classical soprano style with slightly wonky pop vibes. And the songs that I singled out for special treatment and relistening really held up powerfully well. Where this fell down in relistening is that it does struggle for consistency, and some of the lesser tracks here really verge on weird, almost cringey territory. Fantastic at its best, but not at its best all the time.

18) My Name is Michael Holbrook - MIKA (Pop)

I had no idea until earlier this year that MIKA was still making music, but then he infused this album with the same kind of silly, unbridled joy that marked his explosive debut way back when (2007 incidentally, God I’m old). But what really made this album stand out for me is that, beyond the offbeat fun of songs like “Ice Cream” there are also more mature, thoughtful even ballady tracks like “Ready to Call This Love”. “Tonight” forms a nice balance between the two and was my favourite song from this album, but really it’s full of enjoyable, worthwhile listens.

17) Animated Violence Mild - Blanck Mass (Electronica)

The source of my #12 song of the year, this was actually a real surprise hit for me. As I mentioned, I liked a single song from Blanck Mass’ previous album but found the whole thing really dark, chaotic and unstructured electronica. This album therefore really caught me off guard with how catchy, upbeat and even danceable it is at times, while retaining the complex beats and arrangements that his previous album was full of. “House vs House” is the highlight track but it’s part of a long arrangement of interesting electronic music that’s also very infectious.

16) History - Youssou N'Dour (Mbalax)

Like most people outside Senegal, I was previously familiar with Youssou N’Dour and the mbalax music genre mainly due to his 90s duet with former Rip Rig & Panic frontwoman Neneh Cherry “Seven Seconds”. I was really pleased therefore to find that there’s a rich vein of very beautiful, sweet music to be discovered from him beyond that. The brassy instrumentation and the duets here are quite affecting, and all told this album made me feel very much at peace because it’s just sweet, simple and uplifting. “Macoumba” and “Birima” are my favourite songs on here.

15) Flowers - Children of the Sün (Psychedelic Rock)

I felt like 2017 was an excellent year for psychedelic music, and since then I’ve struggled to find something that’s really great and inventive. And while this, from Swedish psych rockers Children of the Sün, definitely elevated the genre a bit, it isn’t really ground-breaking or inventive. Where its success lies is in how successfully they channel old-school 70s-style psychedelia, to the point of being imitative but simultaneously making it very much their own. They list Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix as influences, but I get more of a Velvet Underground kind of vibe. However you see it though, it’s cool chillout rock.

14) Galaxy I - Amason (Avant-Garde Dreampop)

I struggle with my admiration for this album, and this artist a bit. I love them very dearly but the truth is, if I had to describe their sound to someone, the best comparison I can conjure is to elevator music. Not just in the way that my favourite group Thievery Corporation might be (because it’s chill background music) but because there’s just a twee, cutesy kind of feel to their vocals, while the music is full of swirling synths and playful tintinnabulation. For whatever reason though I find their unique sound, and this album in particular, totally compelling and thoughtful.

13) Diagonal Fields - Gon (Baroque Pop)

The source of my #3 song of the year, “Alive” which acts as the opening track, this album made a very late surge up the rankings when I heard it in October. Similar to Amy Owens, Gon brings a slightly operatic style to what is otherwise pure pop music, but in his case he isn’t really juxtaposing the genres but rather turning strings and piano and classical voice into bright pop ballads that retain the stirring vibes of their traditional roots. There’s a completely arresting sound throughout all of these tracks, and the only reason it’s really failed to crack the top ten is, similar to Josh Garrels, the album is a little one-noted in being slow and stirring, and I’d love to see Gon attack the same idea in a different sort of way; otherwise he gets a little bogged down at times.

12) Sound & Fury - Sturgill Simpson (Psychedelic Country)

So just to close the parenthesis from earlier, this was the album that beat the New Pornographers to take album of the week when they were both released. This is the second of Sturgill Simpson’s albums that we’ve heard (after “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” in 2016) but the first that I’ve really properly appreciated; his 2016 album made a lot of best-of-year lists, but didn’t touch anywhere near mine. What Simpson delivers so well is a real heartland country grunt, but without any of the backslapping or cultural cringe I experience from it otherwise. His themes are more universal and the expansiveness of his sound goes far beyond the prairie. I struggle sometimes to parse the whole album’s full meaning but I very much enjoy the ride.

11) A Different Kind of Human (Step II) - Aurora (Indie Pop)

As much as I loved Aurora’s 2016 album, it was mainly a vehicle to deliver my #1 song of that year “Runaway”, and in every respect I find this a superior album (I should note that we somehow completely missed her 2018 effort and ‘part I’ of this, which I am completely embarrassed about). Yes it delivers all of the same aesthetic: forlorn and wistful dreampop with a good dose of mysticism, but nearly every track on this album is also just a catchy earworm that continues to affect me after the fact. The tracks that aren’t so catchy, well they’re fine too but the overall consistency is the only reason this otherwise brilliant album finds itself just outside the top ten.

10) Shadow of a Wrecking Ball - Le Cygne Noir (Progressive Darkwave)

This album really surprised me, particularly when I revisited it. There’s a particularly camp veneer to a lot of it, which can’t be helped as it is a synthwave concept album about the zombie apocalypse. But while I liked this a lot on first listen, what really struck me on a second visit was how well the album holds together to tell this continuous story of degeneration and collapse. Not just through the song titles and lyrics but musically, progressing from a slight uncertainty into inevitable destruction, all through the conceit of a few synthesisers and a vocal affectation. It is certainly a little tongue-in-cheek, too, which helps it from getting too bombastic and silly; instead it’s just the right amount.

9) Swallow Me Whole - Lupa J (Australio Art Pop)

Speaking of albums that really took me by surprise, this was one I was almost totally not on board with for most of my first listen. It just felt a bit dour, and took itself too seriously. But then suddenly something clicked with me leading into the title track (which is also, for those paying attention, my #11 song of the year). The whole album does have a slightly miserable sound to it, but it’s all for a singular purpose of creating this crescendo of yearning and despair – in a Kierkegaardian sense – that culminates in the last few tracks. The earlier songs that felt a little dry and stilted to me then felt more like they’re evoking emotional repression and the growing emotional drive to it then has a very cathartic release in the final few songs. It’s not an easy listen but it’s an intricately clever one.

8) Balance, Not Symmetry Original Soundtrack - Biffy Clyro (Indie Rock)

It seems I’m on a run of big surprise albums here, because this was probably the biggest of the year. We heard Biffy Clyro’s previous album in 2016, and I dismissed nearly all of it except for one song (“Re-Arrange”, my #26 song of that year) that sounded like nothing else on that album. So imagine my astonishment when Biffy Clyro’s soundtrack to some small Scottish film (that has a rating of 4.4 out of 10 on IMDb) turned out to be one of the best albums of rock music this year. There’s an incredible variegation across this album, with some of the songs having a lively, infectious feel to them; others really exploring some experimental territory with xenharmonics and a bit of the old thrashing around on guitars and drums. Then there’s some, like my favourite track here “Tunnels and Trees” that progresses from one to the other. Ultimately this is just a really great album of powerful rock music.

7) Omoiyari - Kishi Bashi (Baroque Folk Pop)

I’ve teased that this album was coming for a while, and for those who regularly read my blog (Hi, Mother!) you may be surprised by how low this is. To be honest, I was a bit too, as this was certainly predicted to be part of my top three if not at the very apex. Now, to close another parenthesis, this is also the artist I was referring to in my write-up of Lindsey Stirling, where this album held up a lot better than Lindsey’s in terms of following a top 5 album of 2016. Where this feels like an improvement is in the fact that Kishi Bashi here is exploring new sounds, bringing his violin-driven light pop music into more serious, folk-infused territory but retaining all of his playfulness and whimsy. Honestly it feels like a strange reason to knock this down, but when I revisited this I got a little bit irked at the fact that he ends songs badly. This is also true of my #4 song of 2016 (“Can’t Let Go, Juno” that peters out with a bland drumbeat fill), and aside from that criticism this is a brilliant album, but it just felt strongly pronounced here when these songs are otherwise so profound and intricately constructed: so many of them end with such a whimper that it feels like lost potential energy and it takes away a lot of the impact.

6) Widow's Weeds - Silversun Pickups (Post-Punk Revival)

Given that Silversun Pickups took the coveted “two songs in my top 20 of the year” position this year, it might also be surprising that this one has missed out on the top five. One thing that does tend to qualify my love of this excellent album, at least a little, is the fact that I’m conscious of Silversun Pickups as a well-established band that I’ve just never heard before, and the dynamic and interesting chord shifts and instrumental arrangements here is possibly wearing thin on people who’ve followed their whole career. What I mean is that this album was a big revelation to me in delivering so many great sounds put together in such a clever way, but I could just be discovering a great new band (I haven’t gone through their back catalogue yet) rather than a particularly noteworthy album, even though this is very solid. The real reason though that this finds itself only at #6 (I had it marked as a dark horse to take the top spot) is a simple lack of consistency. A few of the songs here, like “It Doesn’t Matter Why”, “Songbirds” and the opening track “Neon Wound” are so brilliantly put together they can make me gasp, but then there’s others that feel a bit like box-ticking punk-adjacent rock that doesn’t have quite the same effect.

5) From Voodoo to Zen - Tides From Nebula (Post-Metal)

Yes, the makers of my #6 song and my #5 album of the year are one and the same. From the moment the opening track (the very same #6 song, “Ghost Horses”) really kicks into gear this album is pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut charging into my top five. And I use the imagery, apposite with “Ghost Horses” being such a powerful bit of energising metal, but the other key selling point here is that there are a lot of surprisingly quiet, reflective moments of exploratory composition here as well that not only expand the sound here but just stand as fascinating contrast to those ass-kicking thumping metal passages as well. It’s really creative instrumental rock that balances visceral energy with those surprising moments of tenderness and peace without really hitting a false note.

4) The Soft Cavalry - The Soft Cavalry (Dreampop)

I love a good bit of dreampop, and this album from husband-and-wife duo Steve Clarke and Rachel Goswell (of Slowdive) absolutely knocked out any other competition for the best dreampop of the year. Like the best in the genre, this is deep and complex music that nevertheless remains mellifluous and soft to listen to. But what really made this stand out over other great examples this year (like ViVii) is the breadth of different sounds that are explored on this album while staying within the soft and trippy foundations they’ve lain. From the more upbeat, confident trappings of “Bulletproof” to the yearning of “Passerby” and the dark menace of “Spiders” there’s a real elemental quality to this album that touches on some quite raw emotions. That’s what dreampop does, at its best, but for this to also change gears and shift as seamlessly as it does makes it pretty special. 

3) To the Ends of the Earth - The Hip Abduction (Indie Pop Rock)

There’s another little running joke that I make where I call The Hip Abduction “the best band in the world”. It started last year when Jez put on their 2016 album “The Gold Under the Glow” on as a ‘throwback’ pick, and I loved it so much that I felt it could have been my #1 album of 2016 had we not completely overlooked it that year. What this joke meant though was that this album had a very heavy weight of expectation when I first listened to it. And, although it did win album of the week (over my #23 album, “Chrysaline” by Josh Garrels), it really didn’t seem like top of the year material. Thankfully, I do partake in revisiting in new contexts and this completely blew me away the second time around. It’s not a profound , life-changing musical moment but it’s just absolutely likeable, pleasing music from start to finish. The guys here infuse little Afro-Caribbean beats into breezy pop music, and the result is relaxing, infectious and never fails to put a smile on my face. I should note that my favourite track here “Come On Get Up” was my #35 song of last year when it was released as a single, and although nothing from this album cracked my top 100 this year it really doesn’t matter because every song is still just very enjoyable.

2) Terraformer - Thank You Scientist (Progressive Jazz Metal)

I can’t overstate enough how completely ridiculous this band’s proposition is. They’re a seven-piece ensemble that seems to be fairly evenly split between the typical sort of lineup for a prog metal band – guitars, drums and vocalist – plus a violinist, saxophonist and trumpeter. What makes it even more ridiculous is just how well it works. This isn’t simply chaotic metal guitar chords with the occasional punctuation from some left-field instrument (the way some folk and symphonic metal artists do), it’s a complete fusion of big-band jazz with all the distortions and driving power of progressive metal. But at no point during this album do I feel like it doesn’t make sense; the most bizarre thing about Thank You Scientist is that they make jazz and metal feel like they always belonged together. Salvatore Marrano’s tenor vocals are a big part of what ties it all together; on first listen I found his voice a little too melodious, but on revisiting it became clearer that there’s a charming tongue-in-cheek quality to his style, and that’s ultimately the same charm that defines this weird and wonderful album of music.

1) Pale Ramon - Pale Ramon (Alt Rock)

I’ve spoken a lot throughout these writeups about songs, albums, and so forth, being ‘earmarked’ for top spots and falling through at the last minute, and you’re looking here at the one album that absolutely and consistently lived up to my expectations and my recollection. From the moment I even previewed this to see if it was worth listening to the following week, I knew I was onto something very special. It didn’t hurt that the first time I listened to it properly (as I mentioned a few posts ago) was when I was driving back to the hospital to visit my wife and our baby daughter the day after she (the latter) was born, but I can’t think of anything more inspiring and expansive than this album of music to match that sort of mood, of contemplating possibilities. It’s really astounding to me the way these guys start with a musical idea and transition through different phases to end up on a higher stratum while never losing sight of that original idea. The confidence that they have – on their debut album, no less – to introduce these experimental and psychedelic flourishes, like the fadeout section on “All My Ways, Always” is captivating. It reminds me from a composition point of view of Sufjan Stevens at his progressive best, while musically it has more the cinematic scope and drive of The National – although I regard these guys more highly because, frankly, they also have the sense to keep this a dense and consistently great half hour of music rather than over-indulging their own interests. If, as the opening track suggests, the best has yet to come, I’ll be on the edge of my seat to hear their follow-up. It’s quite simply a masterpiece.

And just to round things off, I did quite an intensive couple of weeks of relistening this year so rather than a haphazard set of honourable mentions I actually have the next set of albums ranked all the way down to 42 (why 42, you ask? Ooh I'm needed in the basement...)

26) On the Line - Jenny Lewis (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
27) Anima Mysterium - Yugen Blakrok (South African Hip-Hop)
28) Uchoten - Polkadot Stingray (Japanese Manic Rock)
29) The Spell - Cellar Darling (Folk Metal)
30) You Are OK - The Maine (Emo Rock)
31) Freya Ridings - Freya Ridings (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
32) S3NS - Ibrahim Maalouf (Big Band Jazz)
33) This is Not a Zen Garden - Domiciles (Industrial Rock)
34) Solutions - K.Flay (Indie Pop)
35) Fever Breaks - Josh Ritter (Alt Country)
36) …but for the sun - Big Wreck (Indie Rock)
37) The Gereg - The HU (Mongolian Folk Metal)
38) All My Dreams Are Of This Place - Fires (Industrial Rock)
39) Beauty Marks - Ciara (Pop RnB)
40) Seven Horses for Seven Kings - Black to Comm (Deathtronica)
41) Metamorphejawns - Ecce Shnak (Avant-Garde Stupid Punk-Gregorian Chant Fusion Weirdness)
42) Pitfalls - Leprous (Progressive Rock)

So there you have it. Next up of course is my books of the year, which will come in the new year (I need to finish my last book before I can slot it into the rankings and write them all up), but that one's easier to write since I take copious notes through the year and it's just a case of editing. Until then, enjoy!