It’s the biggest cliche, but it turns out to be true: when you have a kid, it gets a lot harder to listen to new music.
Part of it is simple math. There are just a finite number of hours in the day, and parenthood takes up many of those hours. But it’s not like I didn’t listen to music this year. I love having music on around the house when playing with the kiddo. But we spent a lot of that time with old favorites–at 21 months he’s already intimately familiar with all the Beatles deep cuts, and has heard a lot of New Orleans brass. And even when I put on new stuff, there’s a difference between solitary time when you can really focus on the music, and busy time when music is a nice accompaniment.
So I found plenty to love this year. And some of it feels especially important to me, since I got to share it with Eric. So if my listening was a little less comprehensive this year, I certainly didn’t miss out on the joy of music, which is really the important part.
As usual, I’ve created a Spotify list. But Spotify pays artists basically nothing, so I’ll make my annual request: if you like this music, go pay real money for it. At Bandcamp preferably. Artists are really hurting these days, after two years of limited or non-existent touring. Music is so so good, and artists should be compensated for giving it to us.
15. First Aid Kit – Palomino
I don’t think these sisters are capable of making an album I don’t enjoy. There’s more of a 70s FM radio feel to it than anything else they’ve done, which is a nice change–albeit one that I hope doesn’t define their new sound going forward. It didn’t grab me as forcefully as their other records have, but it still perfectly lovely.
14. Taylor Swift – Midnights
This album makes my list this year almost entirely because of the aforementioned difficulties finding time for music. I’m almost certain that some of the honorable mentions below will end up mattering more to me over the next few years. But Taylor Swift writes some ACCESSIBLE music. Which might sound like a diss, but it’s really not. If there’s nothing I truly loved on this record, I still listened to it a lot and got plenty of enjoyment from it. And that’s fine; not everything has to be a game-changer.
13. Tiny Moving Parts – Tiny Moving Parts
Midwestern emo punk that delivers exactly what it says on the tin. There’s nothing here that surprised me, and even after a fair few listens I still can barely distinguish any of the specific tracks in my mind. So I suppose that makes it a bit disappointing. But I’m hardly the sort to believe that everything needs to be Great Art in order to count as sucessful. if the standard is less ‘Great American Novel’ and more ’13th installment in a page-turning detective series that you enjoy’ then it delivers just fine.
12. Lumenette – All Around My Head
It’s produced by one of the guys from Hammock (who have shown up plenty of times on my year-end lists over the years), and you can definitely hear the similar vibes. But when Hammock does ambient/post-rock, this has far more dream pop sensibilities. It’s a lot warmer than you might expect from a Cocteau Twins or Mazzy Star, but those are still the reference points that make the most sense to me.
11. Caroline Spence – True North
It lacks the standout song that has really elevated her previous records, but if there aren’t any gamechangers here, there certainly aren’t any missteps either. The result is just a dozen lovely songs. My biggest complaint is actually with the production, which is a bit too clean, and with the drums in particular coming in too high in the mix. Every time I listen, I find myself wishing I was hearing these songs live–preferably in room with only mediocre acoustics. Her vocal delivery is so perfect that I want to hear it struggling against something, to give it the full range of possibility.
10. Pixey – Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes
It feels like there’s been a lot of this sort of thing–music that seems to be drawing from both the alternative and pop traditions of the mid-90s. As a 90s kid, this manages to feel simultaneously nostalgic but also kind of alien. On the whole, I can’t say it’s a fusion that I generally enjoy all that much. But this record definitely makes me see the potential. The pop bops definitely pop. And the hooks have plenty of hook.
9. Gordi – Inhuman EP
I have yet to find a Gordi record I don’t love. Even this short EP offers more than enough to justify a spot on the list. Gordi excels at building soundscapes, but that can come in a lot of forms. You can literally hear the progression of ideas as you work through the record. The opening tracks are acoustic-driven, built around some very simple chords. The later tracks are far more laden with studio production–with her delightfully sparse cover of Grass is Blue providing a palate-cleanser before the closing title track. To my ears, the soft contemplative tracks are the best. But the real joy is in the interplay.
8. Nina Nesbitt – Älskar Nights
7. Yumi Zouma – Present Tense
You’d think that the better part of a century into the history of modern pop music, the supply of perfect pop gems would be starting to run low. But they somehow keep finding new ways to play with the same basic components and produce things that sound fresh and lively. These two records fit together very nicely, in that they both explore aspects of the contemporary pop scene.
Yumi Zouma starts with a dream pop template, but has added quite a bit of jauntiness on this record, to wonderful effect. Nina Nesbitt’s record is a bit more mainstream in its songcraft, albeit the mainstream of a few years back. Which is just to say that if Katy Perry had released some of these songs in the early 2010s, they would absolutely have rocketed up the charts. But the best moments are the ones that get away from the big anthemic choruses and dwell in the particulars. It’s also worth getting the Älskar Nights deluxe edition, since several of the best tracks were inexplicably relegated to the bonus disc.
6. Mariel Buckley – Everywhere I Used to Be
It bounces between melancholy and depression. If at times, that makes it all feel just a little TOO bleak, she rescues things with some quite jaunty tunes. It’s a country record on the surface and deep in its bones, but in between you can find plenty of synthetic elements and AOR vibes. The effect is something that’s pleasantly timeless.
5. Caitlin Rose – CAZIMI
It’s been almost a decade since her last album, which is far far too long. Her music is deeply Nashville, but in the fullest sense. These songs are immaculately produced, but they also feel utterly real and specific–full of all the life and love and sadness of the struggling busker, the fresh-eyed kid chasing a dream, the lifer trying to recall what made them fall in love in the first place.
4. Etran de L’Aïr – Agadez
By self-description, Etran de L’Air are “stars of the local wedding circuit” in the city of Agadez on the southern edge of the Sahara–quite literally the last homely house before a thousand miles of desert. That’s not exactly the bio I would have expected to be responsible for maybe the most kickass record of the year. But apparently that supposition was a product of my own ignorance, because damn this thing SMOKES.
3. Soft Blue Shimmer – Love Lives in the Body
If you name your band Soft Blue Shimmer, you better sound like a soft blue shimmer. Mission Accomplished. Damn this album is good.
2. Built to Spill – When The Wind Forgets Your Name
Built to Spill isn’t the sort of band that inspires a lot of anticipation. These days, they just drop a new album every five years or so. They all still sound like Built to Spill, but also all have their own unique vibe. Some are merely fine. Some are genuinely great. This one falls on the very high end of that range. I still probably think There Is No Enemy is my favorite of their post-90s albums, but this one is pretty close.
1. marine eyes – chamomile
An absolutely gorgeous record. I’m tempted to call it things like ‘exquisite’ and ‘delicate,’ because it absolutely is. But I worry that those words will make it sound fragile. And it’s anything but fragile. Listening to this record makes you feel like the ocean and the clouds and the stars and the sunshine, all humming together. It’s my favorite album of the year, and there isn’t really anything else that came close. Every time I listen to it, I find new depths and new joys.
Honorable Mentions:
- bahía mansa – boyas + monolitos
- Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive
- HOLY FAWN – Dimensional Bleed
- Viul & Benoit Pioulard – Konec
- Hayley Kiyoko – Panorama
- The Window Smashing Job Creators – The Power of Friendship
- Ethel Cain – Preacher’s Daughter