Tag: albums

My Top 10 Albums of 2020

Starting this weekend, and for the next three weekends, I’m reviewing my year in books, TV shows and music. This weekend/today I’m posting my top 10 albums from this year; next weekend, my top 5 TV shows from this year; and the last weekend of the year, my favorite books read this year. My last blog post of the year will be Dec. 31 and will be my one word of the year.

Initially I had a list of 25 albums, but then I decided that would be too much so I narrowed it down to 10. A few albums aren’t listed either because I just discovered them, for example, Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers and græ by Moses Sumney or because even though they were released this year, they were made in the 1960s and 1970s: Palo Alto by Thelonious Monk from a live concert at Pal Alto High School in 1968 and Homegrown by Neil Young from sessions in 1974 and 1975.

From left to right, top to bottom, my top 10 albums of 2020 are (with album titles and artists in captions where titles/artists are not visible) :

  • Have We Met
    by Destroyer
  • Heaven To A Tortured Mind by Yves Tumor
  • UNTITLED (Black Is)
    by Sault
  • UNTITLED (Rise)
    by Sault
  • Women In Music, Pt. III
    by Haim
Yes, there are 11, but I am counting Sault’s two albums as one
because they both deserve inclusion.

And here is one song from each album on a Spotify playlist I created:

What did you listen to new this year that was among your favorite albums? What did you listen to, period, this year musically? Share in the comments.

My Top 60 Albums of the 2010s

In addition to my normal post on the top albums of the year, that will be posted this coming Wednesday, Dec. 11 as part of #AMonthofFaves, I am putting up this bonus post on “My Top 60 Albums of the 2010s”. I shortened the title in Spotify to “My 2010s Top 60 Albums” so that you wouldn’t see ellipses. Five artists, Father John Misty, FKA Twigs, Grimes, James Blake, and Vampire Weekend, have two albums each; and one, Beyoncé, has three albums on the list.

I chose one song from each album, with the playlist not being a countdown, but organized alphabetically by first name of artist or group with album title. Since on the playlist it doesn’t show the title of each album, I am including the full list here along with the year each album was released:

  1. Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color (2015)
  2. Angel Olsen – Burn Your Fire For No Witness (2014)
  3. Arcade Fire – Reflektor (2013)
  4. Arctic Monkeys – AM (2013)
  5. Beach House – Bloom (2012)
  6. Beyoncé – Beyoncé (2013)
  7. Beyoncé – Lemonade (2016)
  8. Beyoncé – Homecoming: The Live Album (2019)
  9. Björk – Vulnicura (2015)
  10. Bon Iver – 22, A Million (2016)
  11. Burial – Rival Dealer (2013)
  12. Caribou – Our Love (2014)
  13. Chris Stapleton – Traveller (2015)
  14. CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (2013)
  15. D’Angelo – Black Messiah (2014)
  16. Darkside – Psychic (2013)
  17. Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan (2012)
  18. Eric Church – The Outsiders (2014)
  19. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear (2015)
  20. Father John Misty – God’s Favorite Customer (2018)
  21. Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (2012)
  22. FKA Twigs – LP1 (2014)
  23. FKA Twigs – Magdalene (2019)
  24. Foxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic (2013)
  25. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange (2012)
  26. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost (2011)
  27. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! (2012)
  28. Grimes – Visions (2012)
  29. Grimes – Art Angels (2015)
  30. Hamilton: An American Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (2015)
  31. James Blake – James Blake (2011)
  32. James Blake – The Colour in Anything (2016)
  33. Jamie XX – In Colour (2015)
  34. Jon Hopkins – Immunity (2013)
  35. Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour (2018)
  36. Kanye West – Yeezus (2013)
  37. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)
  38. Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo (2018)
  39. Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell (2019)
  40. Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker (2016)
  41. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (2011)
  42. Mitski – Be The Cowboy (2018)
  43. Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven (2013)
  44. Parquet Courts – Wide Awake (2018)
  45. Powder – Powder in Space (2019)
  46. Real Estate – Atlas (2013)
  47. Solange – A Seat at the Table (2016)
  48. Spoon – They Want My Soul (2014)
  49. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy (2011)
  50. Sturgill Simpson – Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014)
  51. Tame Impala – Lonerism (2012)
  52. The War On Drugs – Lost in the Dream (2014)
  53. The Weeknd – Trilogy (2012)
  54. Thundercat – Drunk (2017)
  55. Todd Terje – It’s Album Time (2014)
  56. Tierra Whack – Whack World (2018)
  57. tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L (2011)
  58. U.S. Girls – In A Poem Unlimited (2018)
  59. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
  60. Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride (2019)

At least three on the list technically aren’t albums on their own: Rival Dealer is an EP; Whack World, a mixtape, and The Weeknd’s Trilogy, remixed and remastered versions of his 2011 mixtapes House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. However, I still counted them as albums for simplicity.

I also including a graphic below that has a list of all the albums and breakdown by year. If for some reason, you can’t read the graphic or link to the graphic, the breakdown is as follows: 2010, 0; 2011, 5; 2012, 8; 2013, 12; 2014, 9; 2015, 8; 2016, 5; 2017, 1; 2018, 7; and 2019, 5.

Much of the music I discovered in the 2010s was in large part thanks to Pitchfork, so a tip of the hat to the folks there for introducing me to so many great artists and bands.

What were the albums that you had on heavy rotation during the 2010s that you couldn’t live without? Share in the comments below or link to your own list on your blog or a playlist on the music service of your choice.

My Top 25 Albums of 2018

Earlier this month, I gave you a list of our favorite TV series and movies that we watched this year; tomorrow, I’ll give you a list of my favorite books read this year; and today, I give you a list of my top 25 albums (mostly) from this year:

  1. Double Negative by Low
  2. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love by Deafheaven
  3. Now Only by Mount Eerie
  4. Sundays by Tanukichan
  5. Yolk in the Fur by Wild Pink
  6. Nearer My God to Thee by Foxing
  7. Record by Tracey Thorn
  8. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino by Arctic Monkeys
  9. Hope Downs by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
  10. Chris by Christine and the Queens
  11. Room 25 by Noname
  12. Devotion by Tirzah
  13. Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts
  14. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
  15. Way Out West by Sonny Rollins
  16. Piano & A Microphone by Prince
  17. 7 by Beach House
  18. In A Poem Unlimited by U.S. Girls
  19. Historian by Lucy Dacus
  20. Be The Cowboy by Mitski
  21. Con Todo El Mundo by Khruangbin
  22. El Mal Querer by Rosalía
  23. Whack World by Tierra Whack
  24. Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves
  25. God’s Favorite Customer by Father John Misty

I select what I listen to usually from Pitchfork, with albums that normally are rated 8.0 or above, with a few exceptions. Surprisingly to me, Pitchfork didn’t have Father John Misty’s album in its top 50 albums of 2018! They did include in its Best Rock Albums of 2018. I also have another list of top electronic music albums from this year, but I thought most of you probably aren’t into what my wife calls “machine music.”

At the end of this post, I’ve included a Spotify playlist with excerpts from my top 25 albums of 2018. I only included from 22 albums, because the last three albums didn’t really fit for openers for the playlist. The band Low, for example, is very discordant; Deafheaven has death metal growls in it; and Mount Eerie…well, he’s just depressing (not that some of the rest in my top 25 albums aren’t depressing, but his last few albums were about the death of his first wife).

I will give a few other notes on the list:

  • Jeff Tweedy, Arctic Monkeys, and Christine and the Queens are all late entries.
  • None of the artists or groups were in my top 15 albums last year.
  • Tierra Whack’s album is 15 minutes long with each song a minute. It is better heard in its entirety. It was envisioned as a video too, but unless you’re into “wack” videos, I’d say skip.
  • The two Spanish titled albums just happened to end up beside each other on the list. I only noticed when typing out the list here.
  • I’m not into a lot of modern country but I was pleasantly surprised by Kacey Musgraves.

What was some of your favorite music from this year or that you listened to this year? What couldn’t you stop playing? That No. 1 album is one both my wife and I had on constantly, in the car, at work, and at home.

Currently: On Hold

This weekend, I had planned on catching up on some reading on my own and cutting down some brush in our backyard with my father. My wife had planned on just catching her breath, pretty much literally, after being in the hospital for atrial fibrillation and attempting to adjust to her medications. Then Thursday night, one of my college roommates, who is going through a difficult divorce, called to ask if he could come up for the weekend. As we knew he needed to get away and that he had to be back Sunday night, we couldn’t refuse his request.

So currently, as of this writing, life is on hold, and here’s where I am, and where we are, with “things.”

Reading: I’m in the middle of reading The Rubber Band, the third Nero Wolfe mystery, by Rex Stout, and am enjoying it so far. I have a few others checked out on ebook from the Free Library of Philadelphia and in print from our hometown library where I work. However, since I’m not sure if I’ll get to any of them, I’m not going to mention them yet.

Watching: My wife and I finished The Defenders, and we thought it was pretty good. I liked the first season of Daredevil the best; she, Luke Cage. My roommate and I also watched a few episodes of the first season of Mr. Robot, which he had been wanting to see. It was interesting, but I don’t think it’s something I feel compelled to watch.

Listening: On Friday, The War on Drugs released its latest album, its major label debut, A Deeper Understanding, and while I’ve only heard a few songs so far, based on those, I’m looking forward to listening to more of the album, maybe later this afternoon.

Anticipating (September and beyond): My wife and I are finally going on a wine trip mid-month to wineries on Seneca Lake in New York after one being canceled earlier this year and this one almost being canceled. It is being sponsored by the library where I work in celebration of its 100th anniversary. 

Two weeks ago, we learned that our 17-year-old car is finally on its last wheels and so by the end of the year, specifically November when it’s inspection runs out, we have to get a new (used) car. 

Last but not least, my wife is continuing with tests this week and beyond for her atrial fibrillation to see what her next steps will be. All of this is also making me think about my own health, and “taking care of myself” too, something I have put on the back burner for too long. 

Before I ask my usual questions, I’ll leave you with this earworm (NSFW) my roommate left me with earlier this weekend:

Whatchya reading, watching, listening to, doing, anticipating? Share in the comments.