My 20 Favorite Albums of 2024

 

A thing that's always been a source of pride for me is that I still haven't reached a point where my music taste has calcified, where I stop being curious and only stick with artists I already like.  Even though I ask myself more and more whether I'm becoming washed -- particularly when Pitchfork drops a new best-of list and it's filled with rap picks I find borderline unlistenable -- the thrill of discovery is still too powerful to ever want to retreat from it just because I sometimes stumble upon things I don't understand.  So even though I'm an aging indie kid who continues to check out new Decemberists albums (don't laugh, this latest one was pretty solid!), I remain intrigued by the idea that my new favorite band could be right around the corner.

2024 was a year where I felt more open than I've ever been.  I attribute that to new friendships with music lovers who have slightly different wheelhouses than I do and being inspired to meet them where they're at.  It might not be fully reflected in my list of favorites below, but I tried a wide range of music this year and it was very nourishing.  Below is a mix of old and new loves, but all of them made 2024 better.  Enjoy!

The rules: The window of eligibility for this list is anything released from January 1, 2024 to now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2023

 
2023, huh?  What a year.  I don't know that there were any releases this year that had an instant classic cultural status, nor were there any ones that personally blew me away completely, but that was made up for by the fact that there were so many albums that were very strong even if they weren't era-defining.  According to my Last.fm, I've racked up 12,627 song plays this year at the time of writing this, so I was listening to quite a bit of music in 2023.  Here's a rundown of some of my favorites that took up much of that listening time.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released from January 1, 2023 to now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

100 Songs I Liked In 2023

 

As always, my official end of the year lists will start on December 29th with my 20 favorite albums of 2023.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post could never cover all of the things I enjoyed over the past 12 months.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me.  And this year I'm running so late that I actually haven't finalized my top 20, so there could be a song from an album that sneaks into that list at the last minute.  I've been going with 100 songs for this list for that past few years, but this time I really had to stretch and find some tracks to stretch to those last few slots.  Hopefully you enjoy these picks and find some new music to get into!

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2022

 

Do you know what the sound of that fanfare rising from the distance means?  It's time for another rendition of my favorite albums of the year list.  I've been doing this list for years now and I just realized I've never detailed my odd listening habits, which might give a little insight into the amount of albums I can and can't get to in a year.  Alright, here it goes: Every Monday I make a new playlist that I tend to like to keep an hour long, usually containing one album that just came out that I'm interested in, and if that's less than an hour I'll include isolated songs from other albums I haven't been able to get around to.  And without fail, I listen to that playlist once a day for seven days straight, and then it's on to the next playlist.  Even if I don't end up liking the album on the given week's playlist, I stick with it or else it'll throw off my whole pattern.  Obviously, I listen to albums from years past and albums from previous playlists when I have free time elsewhere, but the weekly playlist is a constant.

Is this an overly rigid method, the work of someone who may have a few screws loose?  Yes, no question.  But it's been working for me for over a decade.  However, this year was the first time that I wondered if this method is untenable given the amount of music I want to listen to for contention on this list.  With the current process I use, I can only have around 60 total albums to which I can give an ample amount of listens, and there seems to be more records that intrigue me every year.  I don't know if 2022 was just an outlier, with everyone who's been holding on to releases due to the pandemic all deciding to drop material, or if this is the new normal.  That's a worry for next year though.  For now, let's dig into some of this year's best music.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2022 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

100 Songs I Liked in 2022

As always, my official end of the year lists will start on December 29th with my 20 favorite albums of 2022.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post could never cover all of the things I enjoyed over the past 12 months.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me.  I keep expanding the amount of songs I do for this list, starting at 50 and then expanding to 75, before finally landing on 100 last year.  I doubt I'll ever increase it from there because I like my free time, but I did have to cut some songs to get it down to the 100 count.  Hopefully you enjoy these picks and find some new music to get into!

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2021

In 2021, I listened to more music than ever, both because I had more time to and out of pure necessity.  Though the pandemic rages on, that hasn't stopped musicians from putting out material, and this year brought on a deluge caused by so many artists hitting the pause button last year.  I consumed way more EPs this year as a result, since some bands still hedged their bets and are waiting until touring is fully back to release an album.  Others tided over fans by releasing rarities or re-recordings of old work.

But no matter what shape or size it came in, music was great in 2021.  Rap produced a wealth of gems after a slow start, emo music continued its rise in respectability, and even the supposedly dying genre of indie rock had some works that revitalized the form.  Let's take a look at the best of what this year had to offer.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2021 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  As always, I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2020

You can't write an intro to an end of 2020 list without paying some lip service to what a tumultuous year it was, but out of the three lists you'll be seeing over the next three days, this music roundup feels like the one that was affected the least by the pandemic.  Back at the beginning of everything, when most people assumed this whole COVID-19 thing would blow over in a few months (oh, how naive we were), there were some albums that got pushed back a few months, but once everyone realized we were going to be in it for the long haul, even those came out.

If anything, we got more music due to the pandemic, not less.  After all, Taylor Swift -- previously known for her rigid gaps between release dates -- put out two albums in the last five months.  And it wasn't just her, all over the map we saw artists dropping more music or putting out projects sooner than we expected.  While some used their newfound time due to canceled tours to supplement their income in creative ways, others simply got to work, and we got to reap the rewards.

Musicians weren't the only people with time on their hands either.  Between working remotely minimizing the amount of interruptions I experience during the day, and the lack of TV programming leading to lots of time needing something to occupy my ears while watching NBA games, I had many more opportunities to listen to music in 2020.  I tried to use that time to expand my horizons and listen to genres I've largely bypassed, like electronic music and emo, because I previously just didn't have the bandwidth to dive into a whole new world.  Naturally, this led to me feeling more overwhelmed than ever by the sheer amount of music there is out there just waiting to be heard.  Every year, there are albums I really want to get to that I don't end up spending time with before the deadline for this list, but it seemed to double this year.  Between the 10 million Griselda albums, the weekly deluge of Detroit rappers dropping Youtube loosies, and all the emo bands Ian Cohen recommends on Twitter, there is so much good stuff that didn't get my full attention.  So think of the list you're about to read as less definitive and more like a snapshot of my favorite things I managed to get to.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2020 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  As always, I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.

75 Songs I Liked in 2020

 

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2020.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Because I listened to and liked more songs this year, I've expanded this list to be 75 tracks instead of the usual 50.  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally enjoyed in 2020.

Dispatches from elsewhere: A review of Taylor Swift's "folklore"

For a while if you were a Taylor Swift fan, there was one certainty in life: a new album of hers would come out in the fall of an even-numbered year.  And though that pattern was finally broken during the three-year break between 2014's 1989 and 2017's Reputation, the two-year gap returned with the release of Lover last year.  The general idea seemed to be that if you wanted a new Taylor Swift album, you'd need to wait at least two years.  That's why it was particularly shocking to wake up on July 23, 2020 to a social media post from her announcing that not only was she dropping a new album, but that it was coming out at midnight.  Now that folklore has been in the world for a little over a week, it's finally time to plumb its depths.

It's an interesting time in Swift's life, as she's now 30 years old, a milestone that can cause anyone to spiral, let alone a former teen star whose appeal has often been centered around her youthfulness and prodigy status.  We also happen to be living in a complicated time in the United States, suffering the worst effects of a global pandemic and going stir crazy from months of self-isolation.  This personal upheaval and a larger global upheaval both appear to have contributed to the themes and stark black-and-white aesthetic of folklore, which seems to be written from the perspective of someone who's finally letting the sheer accumulation of life dawn on them.  Album opener "the 1" serves as a tone-setter in that regard, as she sorts through thoughts about a former partner and ponders how things could have been different between them.  "You know the greatest films of all time were never made," she sings at one point, which feels like a key to understanding the whole album.  It's a record obsessed with sliding doors, what ifs, and lost time.  The longer you're on this earth, the more there are lives unlived that branch out from your path of reality, and it's a concept she reflects on often in these 16 new tracks.

Folklore embraces the idea of its title in the literal sense, offering up tales of the nouveau riche, visions of war, and ballads about mournful ghosts. On these tracks, she plays the role of a raconteur with a 360 degree view of everything, taking these creative writing exercises and transforming them into vivid, compassionate narratives.  But as always, she also finds a way to turn things inward.  This is an album filled with totems and memories, and Swift weaves them all together into the idea that our personal history is a form of folklore itself.

She's able to accomplish this because she is one of the most cogent communicators of emotion out there, able to put a finger on complex, tangled thoughts and translate them into fragrant phrases that bore into your brain.  Here she is on "this is me trying," describing a lost love she can't stop thinking about: "You're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town."  On "seven," reflecting back on the freedom of childhood: "Please picture me in the weeds / Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously / Any time I wanted."  The imagery on "august" is so rich you can basically feel the heat of an endless summer day and being "twisted in bedsheets."  And she always knows how to add the perfect descriptors to make a line really pop.  It's not just a high, it's a "dwindling, mercurial high."  The wedding wasn't just charming, it was "charming, if a little gauche."

Swift's gift as a lyricist is nothing new, but some of the sounds she's playing with this time around are.  When the shock of the surprise album announcement wore off, the next biggest thing to process was the fact that 11 of the 16 songs on folklore would be co-produced by The National's Aaron Dessner.  His signature plaintive piano, stately guitar lines, and gently stirring strings are all over this album, to the point where it basically sounds like a new National album if Taylor Swift were the lead singer instead of Matt Berninger.  Swift has had an unlimited budget since around 2010, but even still, her music has never sounded as good as it does in Dessner's hands.  Regular collaborator Jack Antonoff contributes production on the other five songs, and even though he plays a smaller role, it's still crucial.  He knows the contours of her strengths so well at this point that he's able to coax her trademarks out of her when Dessner is busy pushing her to new territory.  And though you can usually differentiate the Dessner songs (usually from the piano sounds) from the Antonoff ones (typically by the way he adds reverb to the vocals), the styles mesh surprisingly well.

If anything, though, the work that these two producers do on this only prove the skills we've known to be possessed by the person at the center all along.  Folklore is The Taylor Swift Show through and through.  At the end of the day good songwriting always prevails, and she's able to graft her crafty song construction and playful language games over just about any sound.  She brings her sense memory-evoking skills to the Cranberries-esque "august," shows her talent for wringing out the head-spinning feeling of being in love through an off-kilter metaphor on "mirrorball," and spills naked emotions all over the bluesy "peace."  The album is astonishing in its sheer amount of killer songs, including some of the best she's ever written, like "invisible string," a gorgeous, tightly written rumination on the vagaries of life that bring us together.

I used to wonder what Taylor Swift's music would look like once she got older, and even had a little bit of doubt about she whether she could sustain herself creatively past 30.  But of course, the signs were always there that she was more of musical chameleon than anybody gave her credit for.  If she could sound like herself over moon-eyed country ballads like "Tim McGraw," dubstep drops on "I Knew You Were Trouble," and the 80s nostalgia pop of "I Wish You Would," it makes sense that she would continue to evolve without much struggle. And her last two albums have shown that her ability to render universal thoughts and feelings aren't exclusive to teen emotions.  This time around her musings don't have the raw immediacy of her early work, but they've been replaced by a cooler, top-down perspective that's different, yet just as interesting.  Last year's Lover proved that she's hadn't lost her pop songwriting abilities, but folklore finds herself stretching in fascinating ways.  If it's any indication, this next decade of Taylor Swift music is going to be thrilling.

(Also if you'd like to read my ranking of each song on folklore, check out this Letterboxd post.)

My 50 Favorite Albums of the Decade: 2010-2019

Part of the joy of being one man with a blog and not an important publication is that I don't feel any pressure to make an albums list that contextualizes the decade.  Nobody's reading this, so I don't need to fit anything in because it's "important" or "groundbreaking."  No, this list is only concerned with what "slaps" and "goes hard."  The real criteria was slightly more complicated, but only slightly.  In choosing my favorite albums of the decade, I thought about the records that meant the most to me at the time they came out, but often an album can seem great in the year of its release and then you never return to it.  So I also made sure to give credit to the albums that I returned to most often and the ones that still held up when I did my relistening throughout this year in preparation for this list.

They say that the music somebody listens to in their adolescence is the era that resonates the most with them and for me that's true, because if I had to choose, I'd probably say I enjoyed the music of the 2000s more than I enjoyed what the 2010s had to offer.  But that's not to say I didn't think this was a good music decade.  You could stretch the list you're about to read out to 100 picks and it would still include albums I love.  The early part of the decade saw the bombast of the 2000s give way to sleeker, more electronic based sounds, which led many writers to declare that rock music was dead. But really, it was just that great rock music was coming from different places.  Particularly in the last half of the 2010s, there was a boom of women making excellent DIY, punk, and music indebted to 90s alt-rock.  Meanwhile, as rap became the dominant force in our culture, and pop continued to be embraced more as a genre worthy of serious consideration, both scenes gave us terrific examples of the form.  Music was thriving all around, and it's ultimately a good thing that the wealth is being spread and not coming from the traditional modes of yore.

So let's celebrate all the 2010s had to offer...

The rules: In order to maximize the amount of variety on this list and ensure that certain artists don't clog it up, I've limited myself to one album per act.  If a certain artist made albums under two different projects -- like Julian Casablancas with The Strokes and The Voidz, for example -- they would both be eligible.  For my yearly lists, I usually consider EPs, but for this decade list I didn't really include EPs into consideration.  There is one exception, but that EP feels so massive and made such a splash that it's basically an album.  And in this day and age, a mixtape is the same thing as an album so naturally those are included.  Other than that, the window of eligibility includes anything released between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2019

These music lists are always the hardest to write an intro for, because there are so many genres and narratives, it's hard to sum it all up into one cohesive statement.  2019, at least for me, was a continuation of trends already known to be true, particularly in the rise of poptimism and the diminishing of traditional indie rock.  This year, rap and pop music take up a whole 50% of my top 20 list, which is higher than it's been since I've started making lists.  Unfortunately, that still doesn't mean there is any Billie Eilish on here.  I apologize to the zero teens reading this.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2019 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.  You never know with surprise releases these days...

50 Songs I Liked in 2019

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2019.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally liked this year.

A 2000 word review of Taylor Swift's "Lover" to heal our fractured nation

In this age where we have constant access to artists and know so much about them, it's hard for reviews of albums from extremely popular musicians to not feel like a referendum on everything surrounding them.  But it seems especially hard when you have an artist like Taylor Swift.  Part of that is because she's one of the most famous people on Earth, so she has the inflated swirl of publicity and reportage that comes with that.  It's also that she's someone who puts so much of herself and her life into her music.  A Taylor Swift album and the discourse around a Taylor Swift album begin to feel like one in the same.

And the stars of discourse were not aligned for her leading up to Lover.  Despite Reputation being a pretty good album when all was said and done, and despite it having an astronomically lucrative tour, the record was seen as a bit of a failure.  On top of that, a fact that hadn't been the case for a long time was now true: Taylor Swift just isn't the biggest pop star in America anymore.  In her absence, Ariana Grande scooped up the Millennial demographic and Billie Eilish conquered the Gen Z crowd.  And it seems like reckoning with that reality caused her to scramble and make some fumbles.

The first of those fumbles was everything about initial single "ME!"  Its release was coupled with a garish music video whose vibe was completely out of step with what people are looking for these days.  Then there's her recent to decision to end her notorious silence on politics by finally coming out against Trump and in support of LGBT issues.  Obviously, it's a net positive if she inspires some young people to become political, and it's better to be late to this stuff than to never come to it at all, but it's not unreasonable for people to think it's a calculated sales move.  Adding to the feeling of calculation was the release cycle of the follow-up single, "You Need to Calm Down," in which a song that only makes one or two passing references to gay rights got a video that features a smorgasbord of queer celebrities.  It all just seemed like a flurry of weird marketing moves that got the album off on the wrong foot.

That's a shame too, because despite all of the extra-textual elements surrounding the album being rancid, Lover is unequivocally great.  Well, except no amount of initial perception could change the fact that "ME!" is a total whiff.  Its generic, Target commercial melody and instrumentation is bad enough, but the fact that it inflicts Brendon Urie on our ears when so many of us are still trying to bleach his voice from the memories of our adolescence is beyond the pale.  "You Need to Calm Down," however, is a monster pop song that sounds like it should've been a smash, and one has to wonder if people would feel more positive about it were they not annoyed with the video and Swift in general.

In interviews, she has spoken about how the aesthetics of this album are a direct reaction to Reputation's look and sound.  Soft pastels fill the art of this release, a contrast to the hard black and white of her previous record.  There's no coincidence in the fact that this album's title, Lover, is a direct inverse of her former favorite phrase "hater" either.  She was a fighter on the last album.  This time around, not so much.  Lover sloughs off the angry edges of Reputation -- instead of fixating on people who've wronged her, she's forgetting they even existed on the album's opening track.  Her only remotely Reputation-esque song is "The Man," which contemplates the gendered double standards that have plagued people's perception of her persona, but even that feels withering and even-keeled compared to the last album's agitated tracks.  Meanwhile, the rest of the album is full of slick bops that are blissed out and love-drunk.

Though maybe that's just as much of a mask as the Disney villain cosplay of Reputation.  Take "Soon You'll Get Better," which feels like the secret core of the album, as a counterpoint.  It's a devastating and sparse song about her mom's cancer -- originally diagnosed in 2015 and re-diagnosed earlier this year -- that reminds the listener that not everything in Swift's life has been a cause for celebration.  A line like "I'll paint the kitchen neon, I'll brighten up the sky / I know I'll never get it, there's not a day that I won't try" even indicates that the positive vibe on the surface of Lover is just an attempt to cope with a lingering sense of sadness.  The album is suffused with little bits of anxiety, like on "Cornelia Street" where remembrances of the time when her current love first bloomed also features the line "And baby I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away."  Things like that bubble up all over the album.  It serves to lend this otherwise happy and content album a sense of stakes, the fact that Swift is grappling with the idea that everything good in her life could suddenly all go away.

She may not have the world-conquering singing voice of an Ariana Grande or the command of mood and sound of a Billie Eilish, but one aspect where Taylor Swift continues to be unparalleled in the pop landscape is the level of sheer craft in her songs.  This album reminds you of how much of a structure wonk she is, with every song feeling like a perfectly constructed set of verses, choruses, and bridges that all fit into the tight little melodic frameworks she spins out like it's nothing.  Never is that more apparent than early favorite "Paper Rings," a song that all the algorithms in the world couldn't make more mathematically catchy.  It's a sock hop gem with undeniable melodies in its chorus and verses, that somehow manages to find another gear in its bridge.

It's in the lyrics however, where Swift truly shines and sets herself apart from her peers.  Her music has always felt like the work of someone who's a tinkerer at heart.  Every phrase is so precise and detail-heavy, written and rewritten to be the most lean and rich version of a sentiment possible.  Over her last two albums it has felt like she was moving away from that evocative style in her transition to unambiguous pop, but Lover is a return to her roots on the lyrical front.  Every line is so vivid and gorgeous, like her use of "holy orange bottles" to describe her mom's prescription pills on "Soon You'll Get Better."  She's still got that fascinating way of phrasing things: "I think he knows / His footprints on the sidewalk / Lead to where I can't stop / Go there every night."  And she paints memories with so much clarity that they unfold like real-time, present-tense moments: "I'm drunk in the back of the car / And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar / Said, 'I'm fine,' but it wasn't true / I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you / And I snuck in through the garden gate / Every night that summer just to seal my fate."

Part of the joy of a new album from an established artist is getting another opportunity to see them play in their sandbox like that.  Her wild bridges, the breathy sighs she uses when she sings some of her lines, her last chorus adlibs -- almost all of the Taylor Swift staples appear on Lover.  And the album features some her best phrase turning ever.  There's "What doesn't kill me makes me want you more" on "Cruel Summer."  There's "My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue / All's well that ends well to end up with you" on "Lover."  There's "We're so sad, we paint the town blue / Voted most likely to run away with you" on "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince."  For people who really love this stuff, it's a major treat.

The left turns end up providing even more joy.  Album highlight "False God" is this low-tempo, midnight simmer that wouldn't feel out of place on an adult contemporary station, and I couldn't help but feel during the Joni Mitchell-esque stagger of words in the pre-chorus and those light saxophone stabs in the chorus the excitement of having never heard her do something like this before.  "It's Nice to Have a Friend" is another highlight in that vein.  Sounding a little like the "Cuckoo" song from Moonrise Kingdom, it blends the soft sounds of a children's choir with steel drums, and contains a bugle breakdown.  Seeing that written out feels like looking at a menu where an item has a disparate blend of ingredients, but hearing it is like having those ingredients come together for an incredible flavor.

All of the tabloid aspects of Taylor Swift's life have never been a point of interest for me, but it feels almost impossible to review this album without mentioning Joe Alwyn.  After all, he's the titular character in "London Boy," a fun and wondrously catchy song that humorless people don't seem to like much.  Alwyn is the longest relationship she's had since entering the spotlight and it's hard not to notice how much happier and healthier it feels via her songs.  On tracks like "False God" and "Afterglow," there's an entirely different approach to weathering the storm of hard times and conflict than we've ever heard from her.  There's a real sense of partnership to these songs, a desire to work things out and attain stability.  It's a far cry from the volatile approach to love we heard back in the days of "The Way I Loved You," and as someone who's listened to her music for over a decade, I can't help but be endeared by that.

So much life is inside of Lover.  There's still something very intoxicating and hopeful about the way her mind and her pen works.  It's full of "magical things" and "dazzling hazes."  She channels that energy into every type of Taylor Swift song you could want on the album's 18 tracks, and it's easy to get caught not only in the its tide of joy and excitement, but also its splashes of melancholy.

In the weeks that led up to the release of this record, I made myself comfortable with the fact that Taylor Swift's peak was over.  The creative arc of a musician is alot like an athlete's output.  Her self-titled debut was the promising rookie season, while Fearless through 1989 was her hall of fame period of dominance.  In that case, Reputation appeared to be the start of her "Lebron James on the Los Angeles Lakers" period: still good, but you can see the cracks in front of you and the best moments in the rearview.  And that was nothing to be ashamed of -- any musician would kill to have an apex as long and high as hers, and merely good Taylor Swift is still better than almost any other popular music.  But Lover is a turn-back-the-clock moment for her, a glorious accomplishment that stands right up there with her greatest work.  It's rare for a pop star's seventh album to be this thrilling, this invigorating and engaging.  The times may be passing her by, but she remains as talented as ever.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2018

How do you sum up 2018 when it comes to music?  You can't, so I'll give a list of just a few of the phases of music discourse from this year: Kanye West produced five albums in five weeks, Drake and Pusha T had a beef in which a secret child was revealed, Beyonce and Jay-Z released a surprise album that everyone forgot about three days later, Eminem had a psychotic break in a Youtube video, Travis Scott rapped "She thought it was the ocean, it's just a pool," critics tried to convince us that The 1975 are good.

So yeah...it was a wild year.  Let's just get to the list.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2018 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.  You never know with surprise releases these days...

50 Songs I Liked in 2018

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2018.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 list in a few days.  I made a minor change this year and am now allowing songs from my five honorable mention albums to appear on this list as well.  So if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally liked this year.

Favorites: May - July 2018

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

I've been a bad little boy and I've neglected to do a post about my monthly favorites for the past few months.  In all fairness though, I have a good excuse: writing sucks.  If you're out there and you're thinking about writing something, anything at all, I do not recommend it.  With that being said, I'm back with a catch-up on some favorites since I've been away.  I'm also going to try to recommit myself to the awful task of writing more posts, but I can't make any promises.

Movies

Leave No Trace

Winter's Bone was received warmly throughout the film world when it came out in 2010, so you would think that it would have led to director Debra Granik getting a slew of projects made, but Leave No Trace is her first feature film since then.  (Her 2014 documentary, Stray Dog, came and went with little fanfare.)  Fortunately, this follow-up was worth the wait.  Leave No Trace is the latest in the ever-present "white people making a go of it in the woods" genre, as it follows a father suffering from PTSD related to his time in the military raising his teen daughter on the outskirts of society.  It's a story that moves with such grace and subtlety, building so gradually that you don't expect it to wallop you as much as it does by the end.


Music

Dirty Projectors - Lamp Lit Prose

After loving the era-defining Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan, I was not a fan of the Dirty Projectors self-titled album from last year.  A self-indulgent, nasty, tune-deficient effort, it felt like maybe Dave Longstreth was lost without his former creative partners who infused their impulses into his best work.  So I was just as surprised as anyone by how great Lamp Lit Prose is.  A return to form in every sense of the phrase, the album re-injects energy and vitality into the band's sound.  If you hopped off of the Dirty Projectors train after the last album, give "I Feel Energy" or "Zombie Conqueror" a try.

Hatchie

I recently became a fan of Hatchie after listening to her debut EP from earlier this year, Sugar & Spice.  It's a lovely bit of 90s style dream pop that's endlessly catchy and swoon-inducing.  I have some concerns about how well her style will hold up on a full-length, but the five songs she's given us so far really do the trick.

Television

Channel Zero: Candle Cove

I checked out Syfy's anthology horror series Channel Zero, which adapts a different creepypasta each season, back when it first started, but dropped it due to time constraints and a slow start to the show. However, I recently just back into it and finished the first season.  Candle Cove doesn't ever ramp up from its deliberate pace, but eventually the show's mounting dread begins to pile on.  It's a show that knows how to unsettle the viewer with simple images (often pulling off the trick in daylight scenes) and I look forward to seeing what the following two seasons bring.

Pose

Over the years, I've slowly warmed up to Ryan Murphy's work, to the point where I even consider myself a fan.  Part of the reason is that he produces so many shows now that he has to take a step back -- instead of shepherding shows with his go-for-broke, chaotic sensibilities, he helps other writers get their vision on to the screen while providing a perfect splash of his style.  Such is the case with Pose, an iridescent blast of a show about the LGBT community and ball culture in 1980s New York.  Murphy and his team of writers find the perfect balance of joy and tragedy in this story of society's outcasts trying to express themselves.  It can get a little after-school special with its drama, and not all of the acting is up to snuff, but it earns its broad moments by making you care about its colorful, complicated characters.

Succession

Many people gradually came around to HBO's Succession, the amorphous genre blob from Jesse Armstrong (Fresh Meat, The Thick of It, the "Entire History of You" episode of Black Mirror) but I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. Succession was great from the very beginning, it's just so radical that it took a while for people to get on its wavelength.  We've seen funny dramas and dramatic comedies before, but the energy of this series feels unique and unable to be squeezed into either of those boxes.  The closest approximation to its tone is, well, The Thick of It.  All I can say is that this vicious, hilarious series about a slimy rich family is one of the best shows on television, and there's no shame in hopping on this wild freight train late.

Miscellaneous

Crunchyroll Premium

I've been watching alot of anime lately (maybe you'll see a post about it soon!) and I figured it was time to upgrade to the Premium version of Crunchyroll.  For those who don't know, Crunchyroll is the most popular (legal) anime streaming site that offers over hundreds of series, and even simulcasts new shows that are airing in Japan.  The Premium version is great -- you don't have to wait a week for the new simulcast episodes and you get to watch videos in HD on any device.  It's well worth the $6.95 per month price, even if you're just a moderate anime fan.

Pitchfork's interview with Liz Phair and Lindsey Jordan

I try not to write too much about things that are likely to end up on my year end list in this column, or else I would've covered the debut Snail Mail album Lush, which I was skeptical of at first but then quickly fell in love with.  So it was a real treat to read the recent Pitchfork feature where Lindsey Jordan, the songwriter behind Snail Mail, and Liz Phair interview each other about various topics.  Few things are more enjoyable than seeing these two different generations of indie rock have a freewheeling conversation about music and gender.

The New Yorker's profile on Ryan Murphy

Emily Nussbaum's profile of Ryan Murphy from a couple of months ago is such an entertaining read, and even the biggest Murphy skeptic -- as I used be -- might come away from it respecting him more.

Favorites: March and April 2018

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies
Blockers
Unlike many others, I don't think the trailers for Blockers made the film look bad.  Instead, it just made it seem like a different movie than it ends up being.  Sure, all of the broad hijinks with the parents trying to stop their daughters from having sex on prom night is still there, but the finished product is much more sweet than the trailer lets on.  The film ends up being an endearing look at the anxieties of three parents facing the prospect of empty nest syndrome, and it constantly lampshades the insanity and double standards of their quest.  As a lover of teen movies, I wish it focused more on the girls' stories -- all three actresses are terrific, but Geraldine Viswanathan in particular steals the show -- but I was still satisfied with what it gave the audience.

Game Night
2018 is apparently the year of the surprising studio comedy, because Game Night is another one that came out of nowhere.  While Blockers in the warmer film, Game Night has more laughs, getting tons of mileage out of the way it heightens this night that has spun completely out of control for its protagonists.  Plus, it has Canadian sweetheart Rachel McAdams fully committing to her wild goofball role.

Thoroughbreds
I had been anticipating Thoroughbreds since it premiered at Sundance last year, and it did not disappoint.  This debut film from Cory Finley is a delightfully dark bit of formal rigor, full of austere shots that match the moral emptiness of its two murderous teen protagonists, played excellently by Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy.


Music
Belle and Sebastian - How to Solve Our Human Problems Pts. 1-3
Belle and Sebastian are one of my top 10 favorite bands of all time, so I was pretty dismayed by the fact that I didn't love Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance back in 2015.  It's got some solid songs like "Allie" and "Cat With the Cream", but for the first time one of their stylistic switch-ups -- this time, solid gold disco -- didn't work for me.  Their How to Solve Our Human Problems series of EPs, released one month apart between December and February, work to win over those who were put off by their previous full-length.  It still retains some of their recent dancy leanings, but those songs are stronger and more concise than before, not to mention being balanced out by a majority of songs that feel like classic B&S.  Not enough people seem to be talking about this collection, most likely due to the odd release strategy, but combine these EPs and they make for a strong 15-song comeback album.

Empath
The DIY punk scene in Philadelphia just keeps producing great bands, and the latest to rise out of it is the trio Empath.  What makes them stand out is that they're a little more noise-pop than their peers.  I generally don't go for music that has a heavy noise influence like this, but their sugary hooks and clean guitar breakdowns that bubble up from the smear of sounds makes for a compelling dynamic.  If you're new to the band, their recent EP Liberating Guilt and Fear is a great place to start.

Frankie Cosmos' performance on Juan's Basement
When I was a burgeoning indie kid, I loved watching Pitchfork's Juan's Basement video series, where bands performed live sets in a dingy New York basement.  (This Beach House performance is still transcendent and other-worldly).  I was happy to learn that the show was not only back after a 10 year hiatus, but it also featured a new installment from Frankie Cosmos, where they play their incredible new album in its entirety.  Stick around for the band interview at the end, which is a batch of delight all on its own.


Television
The Terror
Horror may be the hardest genre to do well on TV.  There's something about returning to a show's world week after week that doesn't lend itself to be scared as well as a contained two-hour film does.  The Terror, the AMC adaptation of Dan Simmons' best-selling historical horror novel, takes up that challenge and succeeds.  The show follows two ships from the British Royal Navy that disappeared while trying to navigate the Northwest Passage in harsh conditions.  It's not necessarily a terrifying show, but it mounts its dread so slowly and skillfully.  Even before mysterious things start occurring to the characters, there's a foreboding that soaks the series, thanks to its desolate tundra setting.  The first season is a little over halfway done, and if it sticks the landing, it will be one of the most impressive seasons of a horror show in a while.


Miscellaneous
Molly Ringwald's essay on John Hughes (essay)
If you're on Twitter, you've probably already read this Molly Ringwald piece from The New Yorker, but it's worth sharing just in case.  Ringwald offers a wonderful, measured take on the man whose work help put her on the map, and how she's had to reckon with the more problematic elements of those movies.  It's better, more nuanced writing than most culture critics who do this for a living could muster.

On Being Needy (blog post)
Lex Croucher has come up before in my favorite series, when I talked about her podcast Make Out With Him, and she's being mentioned here again because she's great!  This time I wanted to talk about her recent blog post on bad relationships, and when to recognize that you're not being needy, it's just that you and the other person have different expectations of the relationship.  I recently just ended a longtime friendship that was very important to me for similar reasons, so I found this very helpful to read.  Maybe it will help you out too.

Pandora at Animal Kingdom
Despite being a lifelong Florida native, I only became a Disney World enthusiast recently as an adult.  I've been to the Magic Kingdom a few times in my life but I had never been to Animal Kingdom or Epcot, so my most recent trip was the perfect chance to go and experience the new section of Animal Kingdom based on James Cameron's Avatar.  My family and I chose to go on the Na'vi River Journey first since the line for Flight of Passage was an insane three hour wait.  River Journey is a standard raft-based dark ride but it's the best version I've seen, full of amazing effects and gorgeous music.  Later in the day when the Flight of Passage line went down, we rode that as well and it was another incredible experience.  If you've been on the Forbidden Journey at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, this is a similar motion simulator experience, except maximized times 100.  The simulator screen is blown out to huge portions and the riding seat is so advanced that you really feel like you're riding a banshee in Pandora.  If you're not into rides, there's still some great scenery in the theme world.  I particularly liked the Swotu Waya drum ceremony that plays once an hour.  Overall, the experience was totally worth the trip.

Paste's piece on The Assassination of Gianni Versace (article)
I thought the second season of FX's American Crime Story was absolutely brilliant.  While it may not have been as buzzworthy and entertaining as the first season, which centered around the OJ Simpson trial, but in many ways it was more challenging and moving.  So it was pretty disappointing to see many critics being so dismissive and underwhelmed by the season.  That's why I loved this Paste article, which not only captures the power of the series, but also rightfully calls out critics on their biases against its subject matter.

Favorites: January and February 2018

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies

Heat (1991)

I'm embarrassed to say that before last month I had never seen Heat, Michael Mann's crime epic in which Robert De Niro and Al Pacino become entangled in a cat-and-mouse game on opposing sides of the law.  It turns out the film lives up to the hype and more.  De Niro and Pacino are terrific, of course, but Mann is the one who elevates the film to its legendary status, imbuing the movie with a mythic quality that genuinely makes you ponder its musings on life and how we spend it.  Plus, the post-bank robbery shootout still might be the best that has ever been put to film.

Paddington/Paddington 2

Film Twitter was all abuzz about these films, and with good reason, because they are truly delightful.  Unlike everyone else, I'm slightly partial to the first movie, but both are heartwarming, funny, and astonishingly directed family films.

Music

Kero Kero Bonito

I first became aware of KKB last year when Frankie Cosmos, one of my favorite artists, talked about her love of the band when she covered their song "Fish Bowl."  But I didn't get around to checking them out until this year, when I decided to listen to their album Bonito Generation and fell completely in love.  Their cutesy, playful style may not be for everyone, but if you can get on their level, you're in for music that's actually impressive on a sonic level (the amount of neck-snapping synth sounds on display in "Lipslap" is astonishing) and has some pretty thoughtful observations on that limbo period of semi-adulthood that is your 20s.  I haven't listened to TOTEP, their new EP that dropped last week, but they're one of the bands I'm most excited about now.

The Smiths singles and B-sides collections

I like the beginning of the year, because not many new albums have come out yet, and it gives me time to catch up on older music that I have been meaning to check out.  Despite being a fan of The Smiths' proper albums, I never listened to much of the singles collections like Hatful of Hollow, Louder Than Bombs, and The World Won't Listen.  And just as everyone has always been saying, they really do contain some of the band's best songs.  Most collections like these are inessential, but you're missing out if you've never heard songs like "Sheila Take a Bow" and "Unloveable."

Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche

I had also never really listened to The Avalanche, an album of songs that didn't make it to Sufjan Stevens' masterpiece Illinois.  I love Sufjan's recent changes in style, but a part of me misses that lush orchestral sound he was working with during his 50 States project.  This record is very clearly a collection of outtakes, but even his toss-offs have a million interesting ideas in them, and something like "The Pick-Up" is up there with some of his best work.

Television

American Vandal

There was something that irked me about American Vandal, which caused me not to watch it last year.  Even with all the effusive praise it was given, I was convinced I wouldn't like it, due to my general apathy for true crime shows and podcasts.  My stubbornness ended up being unwarranted, because I loved it once I finally watched it.  The show builds off of its premise -- excavating the ins and outs of the case of a bunch of penises being drawn on all of the faculty's cars in a high school parking lot -- and goes deeper and deeper into the silliness.  But it also delivers a story that's terrifically constructed, making great use of the engaging high school world it sketches out.

The End of the Fucking World

Every week there's a new Netflix show that the internet insists I have to watch.  The overwhelming amount of content makes me want to give up on checking any of them out.  If there's one to prioritize over the rest of the deluge, however, it's British import The End of the Fucking World.  The less said about it the better -- just know that it's got an extremely original voice and two fantastic performances from Jessica Barden and Alex Lawther.

Other

Ellen Pompeo's Hollywood Reporter profile (article)

I never thought I'd be recommending an article about Ellen Pompeo, of all people, but the profile on her that came out earlier in the year was hilariously candid.  She's an icon.

Hayley Ever After (blog)

Hayley G. Hoover is one of my favorite internet people, and I've missed her work ever since she stopped making videos on Youtube.  Her new blog fills that HGH hole in my content diet.  Even when she's talking about things I think I won't care about, I always find myself lost in her delightful writing voice.

We Are Okay (novel)

I loved Nina LaCour's YA novel Hold Still when I was in high school, but I hadn't read any of her books since then.  Reading We Are Okay, her highly praised 2016 novel about a girl isolates herself in her freshman year of college after a traumatic event in the previous summer, felt like being greeted by an old friend.  LaCour's writing is so gorgeous, and even though this is a sparse story, it's also full of complex shades of love, grief, and loneliness.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2017

Peak TV has been a frequent term thrown around for the past few years to explain the overwhelming amount of content there is out there for consumers.  Maybe we should start talking about Peak Music as well.  The sheer amount of music available has been stressful for longer than it has been for TV, but this year in particular felt even more like there was just too much music from favorite acts and acclaimed newcomers to keep up with.  There are albums that I would have certainly gotten to in previous years, but I just couldn't this year.  Such are the concessions we must make as culture lovers in the year 2017.

If there was one narrative that dominated music -- or at least one that music critics tried to push the hardest -- it was the return of mid-2000s indie rock.  Bands like Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Dirty Projectors, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, The National, and Wolf Parade all made albums in 2017, some after a long absence, and all with varying levels of success.  It seemed like many of these bands were even trying to reckon with their place in the current conversation.  The zeitgeist may have partially moved past this brand of indie rock, but as somebody who grew up on the stuff, it was a mostly pleasant return.

And in the mainstream, rap had another major year.  To the dismay of many purists, rap is the new pop, with the branch of "mumble rap" experiencing unprecedented radio play and streaming numbers.  Songs like Post Malone's "Rockstar" and Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Llif3" hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and it seemed like every month there was a new rap sensation of a similar vein that was capturing the ears of the wider public.  Regardless of how you feel about those songs (I'm not particularly crazy about either of the aforementioned tracks), it's nice to have rap of any classification get this kind of recognition.

So no matter which corner of the music world you chose to focus on, there was alot to chew on this year.  Let's celebrate all it had to offer.

The rules: Things are a little interesting this year.  Going by my usual criteria, the window of eligibility would be anything released between January 1, 2017 and now.  However, one of the biggest albums of this year was actually digitally released early at the very end of 2016.  So in order to still be able to recognize this record, I'm making the distinction of including things physically released in 2017.  Otherwise, everything is the same as usual.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

50 Great Songs From 2017

On December 29th, my "20 Favorite Albums of 2017" list drops, but there's so much good music out there that one list couldn't fully represent what the year had to offer.  It's hard to make an album that's consistently great from start to finish, especially in an age where individual songs are given more and more importance.  So this list is intended to pay lip service to some great standalone songs.  All of these come from albums that won't be on my top 20 list, either because it's a great song on a mediocre album, or one on an album that's good but not quite good enough to crack the top tier.  So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty standalone songs, listed in alphabetical order (I limited myself to one song per artist):