Quick Listen: BLUE FLOWER by The Gray Havens

The Gray Havens, a husband-wife duo from Nashville, have been one of the more dependable indie pop acts in Christian music over the last decade. Dave and Licia Radford have cultivated a reputation for thoughtful singer-songwriter music with a knack for memorable hooks on songs like “Band of Gold” and “Storehouse,” relying a lot on their ongoing collaboration with prolific producer Ben Shive, whose collaborations with the likes of Andrew Peterson and Sandra McCracken betray fantastic taste in music. But as great as the Gray Havens’ last two albums, Ghost of a King and She Waits, were, Blue Flower falls a little short.

This isn’t for lack of ambition; the concept of the record is inspired by C.S. Lewis’s autobiography, Surprised by Joy, and as a lyrical source code, it’s a rich text. But maybe the Radfords and Shive have overextended themselves in their attempts to try some new things in the instrumentation and the production. Part of the Radfords’ charm on their past albums was the simplicity surrounding their beautiful voices, and Blue Flower definitely adds some unnecessary flourishes. That being said, everything there is to love about the Gray Havens is very present on the opening song and title track, which achieves the epic sweep the whole album is going for.

Big Thief, DRAGON NEW WARM MOUNTAIN I BELIEVE IN YOU

There’s a trope in criticism that I notice and cringe at almost every time I hear it in which the critic will take the subject and say it is not the thing it very much is, it is instead another, bigger, and better thing. For instance, saying a movie is not a movie, it’s an experience. Or a TV show isn’t a TV show, it’s a great American novel. I understand what they’re going for; they want to convey that watching the movie or the TV show gives a transcendent feeling that other movies and TV shows do not. However, I feel like this reveals that they don’t really know how to explain to me why the movie or TV show is good. The thing that bothers me the most about this trope is that I’m positive I have used it many, many times.

The reason I’m pillorying this trope right now is because I find myself lost for words to describe the new Big Thief album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, and I really, really want to use this trope. I want to tell you this studio album isn’t an album, it’s an experience. It’s not an album, it’s a great American novel. It’s not an album, it’s a movie.

One of the first instances of this I remember reading was in Pitchfork’s review of Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (not coincidentally another cumbersomely titled album that swings big and hits every pitch), where the reviewer claimed the album played “like an instant greatest hits,” and I’ve seen many reviews since then use the same kind of superlative on other albums they thought rose to that high praise. And it’s the description I keep coming back to for Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, even though I want so badly to think of something more original to say about it.

That description conveys a lot though, doesn’t it? When I tell you this feels like if Big Thief, an indie band not known for making what could conceivably be considered hits even in this disparate age of music, made a greatest hits album, then you have to think this is an album where Big Thief is really going for it, that they’ve found their best hooks and their best riffs and their best lyrics all on the same album. You’d think that this is probably the best summation of their aesthetic yet, a front-to-back summary of all the peaks of their career. You’d surmise that there’s no filler here, it’s all peaks and no valleys, the kind of record a band can only get 20 tracks for over a decades-long career.

How do I communicate how true all of that is without resorting to tropes or hyperbole? Does it say something about how limited my writing skills are that I can’t tell you how good this album is without them (don’t answer that)? How does anyone convince anyone to listen to or watch anything this good without saying something so outrageous it can’t possibly be true?

Maybe I should be less harsh on those critics who end up using overused language to describe works of art. (Another pet peeve of mine: tour-de-force. Who made that okay? It means feat of strength! I don’t know.) I want to describe how good this album is using words and phrases I haven’t used before, because a singular achievement like this deserves it, but instead I use a phrase like “singular achievement,” which I’m almost positive I’ve used to describe something else on this blog, thereby rendering the phrase meaningless. The thing is, you always think the thing you’re describing really is singular until you encounter a different achievement that feels even more singular than the one before.

Big Thief doesn’t deserve this obfuscation. I’ve been with them from the beginning, though I found 2016’s Masterpiece slight and hardly expected them to become indie rock’s primary avatars. The first time I was truly bowled over by Big Thief was 3 albums later on 2019’s “Not,” which is a song that grows on me every time I listen to it and is a much better examination of being unable to find the words to describe something than this post is. Even when I was underestimating them, Big Thief were making either dependable jams like “Not” and 2017’s “Mythological Beauty” or beautiful, wistful meditations on live and love like 2017’s “Mary,” which lilts along in a groove that I’d be happy to listen to forever.

But now that they’ve released Dragon, it’s clear they don’t deserve such paltry attempts at praise. I’d start running through the highlights, but I’d be giving you the tracklist. I’d give you some of my favorite lyrics, but it might be quicker just to scan the liner notes into the post. I’d share some of my favorite musical moments, but at some level, I am wholly unnecessary, and I’m even getting in the way. Is it even possible to review something that might as well be its own little planet?

Writing about art always feels like it’s on the precipice of being a trivial pursuit. Not falling off the cliff looks like finding something beautiful to say about something beautiful, and that’s a rare occurrence. So you’ll forgive me if I rely on a superlatives for a little bit, even if the words will be meaningless almost immediately after I type them, and you’re almost certain not to enjoy Dragon as much as I did now that I’ve hyped it up. But Dragon is a truly transporting record that feels like a band truly at home in the sum of its parts and therefore confident to do anything and everything.

There, I went for it. Now, if you must know, my favorite songs are “Time Escaping,” “Certainty,” and “Little Things,” my favorite lyric is on “Sparrow” (“Adam came trembling beside her / And he said, he said / ‘She has the poison inside her / She talks to snakes and they guide her'”), and my favorite musical moment is either the pregnant (almost uncertain) pause frontman Adrienne Lenker takes before the chorus starts on “Certainty,” or the way Lenker’s voice seems to disappear into the mix on the chorus of “Time Escaping,” I can’t decide.

Song of the Hour: “Break Bread” (2006) by Josh Garrels

Much of my listening time these days is taken up by modern interpretations of hymns. There’s something soothing about meditating on music and lyrics that’s been around far longer than I have. An old spiritual like “Let Us Break Bread Together” has far more wisdom for me than almost any new song, and it only consists of three verses with a lot of repetition. Garrels is a master of atmosphere, even at this early point in his career on his third album, and the floating, easy nature of the production on this song makes it feel like home. And for a song about the essential nature of Christian community, home is the best way to describe it.

Music Bummys: Best Albums of 2020

Top Ten

10. Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters: Almost all of these records are inextricably linked to the period of 2020 in which we were in quasi lockdowns, claustrophobic in our own homes with minimal face-to-face contact with the outside world. It already seems like a memory from someone else’s life. And who better to capture such a strange experience than one of the most singular artists pop music has seen. Apple recorded Bolt Cutters almost entirely before the pandemic hit America, sometimes years before, but songs like “Cosmonauts” and the title song, meant to convey the cabin fever of relationships, were all too real for a country caught between lockdowns and opening up for a year.

9. Chris Stapleton, Starting Over: For my money, Stapleton is in a tier all his own in mainstream country music. No other male musician comes close in that space (though some outside of Music Row deserve consideration- see below). But Stapleton has always existed on the periphery of Nashville’s music machine, his breakout album Traveller something of an accident that blossomed into full-fledged stardom without his studio putting its full weight behind him. Starting Over is no exception, and he even makes the fractured nature of his relationship to Music City plain on the album’s closer, “Nashville, TN,” a fitting end to an album that refuses to bend to pop country’s trends. Even for Stapleton, Starting Over is chock full of stylistic diversity, from classic country tearjerkers like “Maggie’s Song” to the dark blues of “Arkansas” and “Hillbilly Blood.” But even with such variety, Stapleton is in complete control, the purity of his voice holding everything in proper balance.

8. Waxahatchee, Saint Cloud: Of all the albums on this list, this may be the most raw. I don’t mean raw in a unfinished sense; in fact, Katie Crutchfield’s 5th album as Waxahatchee is one of the more polished indie folk records I’ve heard. It feels meticulously constructed, every piece carefully placed. But the emotions are unvarnished, the lyrics standing in stark contrast to its surroundings, dealing with dissatisfaction and deep passion, often in the same song. I liked records more than this one, but Saint Cloud may be the most layered and complex album of the year.

7. Brandy Clark, Your Life Is a Record: Clark has been one of the best lyricists in country music for some time now, collaborating with Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves on some of their wittiest songs. The stories in her songs often have punchlines; the salty kind, though, not the sweet kind. The world Clark creates on Your Life is a true, country-music disaster of a world, with broken romances and beaten-up possessions going hand in hand into an uncertain future. Or, rather, it’s certain that the future doesn’t look bright. What Your Life brings that Clark’s past albums don’t quite achieve is the totality of her vision, an album where every song cuts to the core and her biting lyrics could kill. All killer, as they say, filler be damned.

6. Jon Guerra, Keeper of Days: These days the Christ-focused music I gravitate toward is either reinterpretations of hymns or modern attempts at hymns (Sandra McCracken’s worship music projects like Rain for Roots or the praise collective The Porter’s Gate – see below), so Keeper of Days placing this high on my list is a little bit of a surprise to me. But there’s a humility in the gentleness of Guerra’s voice that speaks to me right now, not because it mirrors my own heart, but because I aspire to the same kind of meekness in my own search for God’s truth in this broken world. Don’t mistake humility and meekness for passivity or timidity though. Guerra knows he is dependent on God to show him the way, but his is a faith that knows he can demand justice from a God who promises it.

5. Drive-By Truckers, The Unraveling: Patterson Hood and his bandmates have always existed on the fringe of the country and rock worlds, which, if you’ve paid attention at all to the mainstream of those genres (and you probably haven’t), is the best place to be. But it’s still the fringe, and even after 11 albums, the weirdness of their approach to Southern music still hits hard. This time the Truckers find themselves confronting a lot of current issues using their Southern milieu, and the effect is that of a facade being scratched and clawed off. They tear into politicians that wave away gun violence with platitudes in “Thoughts and Prayers” and takes responsibility for handing his kids a world with “Babies in Cages.”

Song titles like those might seem clunky or forced, but if you delve into the history of the Truckers, they’ve never shied away from either addressing difficult topics or confessing their own culpability. They made an entire album called Southern Rock Opera that dealt with the complexity of being proud of being Southern while also hating the South’s history of racism. The Unraveling is an updated version of this, and perhaps a bit angrier, at the world and at themselves. The target of their ire this time isn’t the past but the present, not them but us.

4. Dua Lipa, Future Nostalgia: Almost every year has a pop record that captures lightning in a bottle and is wall to wall bangers- even 2020. This wasn’t my introduction to Dua (that would be “New Rules,” which made my Top Fifty songs in 2017), but it is my first album-long entrée into her music. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t to compare her to Madonna in my head-canon. And after having Future Nostalgia on repeat for much of last year, the similarities to Madge were inescapable to me.

Future Nostalgia has this effect, not just because Dua occupies a dominant alto register for most of the album’s songs, but also because Future Nostalgia is the most danceable pop hit album in a long time. She doesn’t have the instincts or apparent desire to shock and awe like Madonna did, so she’s bound of have her own type of career. And that’s what I want for her; comparisons are well and good, and living up to a lofty comparison is an achievement. But make another album on this level, and Dua will be beyond comparison.

3. John Moreland, LP5:

An excerpt from my review:

…there’s something in Moreland’s gravelly voice that communicates a depth to his emotions that other artist’s lack. And his lyrics, full of references to the holy and the divine, understand that the search for one’s identity lies outside oneself. It’s hard to pretend that Moreland isn’t a master of the sad song when there are bars like this on his album: “You gave me a restlessness that lives deep down in my bones / And a pretty good reason to keep right on being alone.”

Maybe I respond so heavily to Moreland because I’m in a similar life stage, years into a job and a marriage with my self-view permanently altered from who I thought I was before my 20s. Our identities have been cracked, yet somehow strengthened. Because of this, John Moreland seems well-suited to those transcendent concert moments in smaller venues. I can imagine being in a room full of chattering people quieted down as he starts singing, “But darlin’ when you reach for me / It feels just like infinity / Honey help me break this curse / Howling at the universe again,” building up my memories and my identity all at once.

2. Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher: Music about malaise has a leg up with me. I tend toward the melancholy in my inner life, so an artist dealing in the mundane things of the world from a sardonic or ambivalent perspective scratches a certain itch for me. There’s no one more sardonic or seemingly ambivalent in pop music than Bridgers right now. Her debut album, Strangers in the Alps, handled this in a muted way that Punisher often expands into full compositions, making use of all segments of the wall of sound, rather than Strangers‘ brick-by-brick approach.

Bridgers’s songwriting has sharpened as well. Strangers was broader; a couplet like “We hate Tears in Heaven / But it’s sad that his baby died” wouldn’t have made it past her lips. But on Punisher her tongue is firmly in her cheek, while still remaining totally earnest. It’s a paradox that only a master songwriter could pull off, the kind of woman who can tell us, “I don’t know what I want / until I f*ck it up.” Few songwriters can hold onto authenticity and self-mockery at the same time; Bridgers has a death grip.

1. Taylor Swift, folklore: There is nothing unique or special about this pick for my top album of the year, and I hate it. But to pretend any other album could go here would have been inauthentic, which I would have hated even more. If we can’t be honest with ourselves, who are we?

There’s a needle I desperately want to thread where I tell you how I know liking Taylor Swift is basic and hardly unique while also exclaiming about how this is the best album of 2020. I’m residing in this strange place where I understand how insufferable it must appear to praise folkore as THE album that sums up last year, even though that’s exactly what I think. No other album served as my non-stop soundtrack for all the chaos swirling around me in the world at large and in my personal life, and no other album would be as predictable a pick for the top spot on this list.

And yet I’m still picking it for my top spot. It’s not that I don’t care what you think, because I do. It’s not that I don’t care about being unique, because I do- probably too much. And it’s not that I don’t value the kind of music that exists outside the mainstream on its own terms, like Moreland or Guerra, because I prefer that the bulk of the music I listen to falls into that category.

Maybe it’s the earnestness of Taylor Swift’s writing that I respond to, the cringe factor having very little effect on me because I unabashedly feel the same things she feels. Several times in every song, I’m in awe that she’s put into words a feeling or an experience I’ve had. Other artists don’t have that effect as often; other artists might be ashamed to be so earnest.

I don’t even know if this is the best Taylor Swift album. That might be 1989 or Fearless. But it’s the only Taylor Swift album with no skips for me. It’s the only one that feels like a real window into her psyche rather than a curated look- even if it’s just as curated as the rest of them, it feels more authentic, like she’s freer from all the aspirations the machine of the industry forces on its stars. And it’s the only one that summed up an entire year or that feels so tangled up in the events of my life.

Another Fifteen Contenders (alphabetical by artist)

Ariana Grande, Positions: The best album from a Disney alum that is definitely not kid-friendly.

Arlo McKinley, Die Midwestern: The second-best John Moreland album of the year.

Bartees Strange, Live Forever: The best album from a new-to-me indie artist.

Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways: The best Bob Dylan album of the year, by far.

Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You: The best Bruce Springsteen album of the year, by a slim margin.

The Chicks, Gaslighter: The best debut album from a new band with nothing at all problematic about their name.

Christine and the Queens, La vita nuova EP: The best EP of the year.

Fleet Foxes, Shore: The best album from an Obama-era indie band.

HAIM, Women in Music Pt. III: The second-best Taylor Swift album of the year.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Reunions: The second-best Drive-By Truckers album of the year.

Jeff Rosenstock, NO DREAM: The best artist in rock right now.

Lady Gaga, Chromatica: The first Lady Gaga album I’ve liked.

Laura Marling, Song for Our Daughter: A sublime folk record.

The Porter’s Gate, Justice Songs: A worship project approaching praise music from an authentic perspective.

Rain for Roots, All Creatures: A worship project approaching praise music from a childlike perspective.

Past Top Tens

2019

Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters
Lana Del Rey, Norman F*cking Rockwell!
Joan Shelley, Like the River Loves the Sea
Beyoncé, Lion King: The Gift
Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains
Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Taylor Swift, Lover
FKA twigs, MAGDALENE
Bon Iver, i,i
Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride

2018

Brandi Carlile, By the Way, I Forgive You
The 1975, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
Ariana Grande, Sweetener
Robyn, Honey
Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer
Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour
Cardi B, Invasion of Privacy
Sandra McCracken, Songs from the Valley
The Carters, EVERYTHING IS LOVE
Courtney Marie Andrews, May Your Kindness Remain

2017

Gang of Youths, Go Farther in Lightness
Rhiannon Giddens, Freedom Highway
Propaganda, Crooked
Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Navigator
Father John Misty, Pure Comedy
Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
The War on Drugs, A Deeper Understanding
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound
Joan Shelley, Joan Shelley
Lorde, Melodrama

2016

Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book
Beyoncé, Lemonade
Sturgill Simpson, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Denial
Solange, A Seat at the Table
Miranda Lambert, The Weight of These Wings
Sho Baraka, The Narrative
Bon Iver, 22, a Million
Courtney Marie Andrews, Honest Life
Jeff Rosenstock, WORRY.

2015

Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
Leon Bridges, Coming Home
Phil Cook, Southland Mission
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell
Alabama Shakes, Sound & Color
David Ramirez, Fables
John Moreland, High on Tulsa Heat
Ben Rector, Brand New
The Tallest Man on Earth, Dark Bird Is Home
Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

Merry Christmas, Even in 2020

Every year I write a post about my favorite Christmas music from the year. Some years I include up to three albums, and some years I only include one, depending on how much new Christmas music I was able to listen to. This is a one-album year. I also included a couple of “old” albums I love as well. Suggest one of these to your church’s music minister to play during the candle-lighting tonight instead of the usual “Silent Night,” just to spice things up.

A New Favorite

Ben Rector, A Ben Rector Christmas (2020): There are two different kinds of Christmas albums: ones where the artist tries to put their stamp on the traditional favorites, and ones where the artist reimagines what Christmas can be through original songs. This is the first kind of album. Ben Rector is a solid studio artist whose dynamism is usually found in his live shows, where he reworks songs with his band to take on different styles. His best studio work is usually his most understated (see: almost all of the James Taylor-esque album Brand New) , though he’s become most famous for his poppiest work (see: the single “Brand New”). I’m happy to report that A Ben Rector Christmas is solidly in the understated category, piano-driven and not overproduced. These are the standards, and, especially if you’re already a Rector fan, they go down easy.

Favorite song: “The Thanksgiving Song,” the only original in the bunch

An Old Favorite

Audrey Assad, Peace (2019): This is the second kind of album. Not all of its seven songs are originals, to be clear, but they’re not all covers of the traditional Christmas carols. There’s a straightforward Gordon Lightfoot cover that benefits from the lightness of Assad’s voice, and then there are two other covers that completely recast the songs as Advent standards: Mumford & Sons’s “Sigh No More,” which gains new meaning as a song of the season, and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” reworked into a beautiful celebration of the end of violence with worship collective Urban Doxology as “Your Peace Will Make Us One.” The rest of the album is filled out with powerful renditions of “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “I Heard the Bells,” along with two originals, “Love Again” and “Winter Snow.” This is my favorite kind of Christmas album, full of the kind of Christmas music that people who say they don’t like Christmas music don’t know about: music that adds to my understanding of the season rather than simply playing on nostalgia.

Favorite song: “Your Peace Will Make Us One (feat. Urban Doxology);” this write-up of the song is about as affecting as the song itself

A New Old Favorite

Ray Charles, The Spirit of Christmas (1985): Every year my wife and I watch When Harry Met Sally during the holidays, and last year I noticed myself nodding my head to Ray Charles’s “Winter Wonderland” on the soundtrack and did a double take – of all the classic Christmas music I have, why don’t I have any Ray Charles Christmas music? It was a huge hole in my collection, so I dug into it and discovered it’s not on any streaming services. All I found were some YouTube versions, which are less than ideal quality, but it’s worth listening anyway. I hardly knew what music was until I first heard Ray Charles, so his versions of these Christmas classics are like gifts I’ve been waiting years to open. On every song Charles sings, he feels like he’s in control of every moment, even as he slides off of perfect pitch or jazzes up the rhythm. In a world where almost all music is at my fingertips, it’s kind of refreshing that I had to search for something being withheld from my grasp. That being said, I need the old white people in charge of things to get The Spirit of Christmas on streaming services ASAP.

Favorite song: “Winter Wonderland”

Music Bummys: Best Songs of 2019

Top Twenty

20. Sunday Service Choir, “Lift Up Your Voices”: This whole album was brilliant, full of refreshingly pure and pared-down gospel music, but this is the choir’s crowning achievement, the chorus gradually rising and falling from ecstasy into bliss.

19. Vampire Weekend, “This Life”: The two Vampire Weekend songs on this list were probably my most-listened-to of the year, and “This Life,” a song about getting through suffering and doubt with the backdrop of the sunniest instrumentation you could imagine, was a big escape for me all 2019 and into 2020.

18. Ariana Grande, “NASA”: I think I dismissed this song on first listen, because she spells out “N-A-S-A,” and superficially that seemed silly to me, but this is a perfectly crafted little amuse-bouche of a song.

17. Big Thief, “Not”: Frontwoman Adrianne Lenker and her bandmates make music that often seems to exist on another plane, but this song about remaining present in the here and now is the most alive they’ve ever sounded.

16. Billie Eilish, “bad guy”: Eilish is less of a provocateur than the jittery villainy of her most famous song made her appear to be, but it nevertheless made her instantly iconic.

15. Joan Shelley, “Teal”: Shelley may never get the recognition she deserves, but according to “Teal,” all she needs are “fresh air, and wind, and waves,” and maybe that’s enough for me too.

14. Billie Eilish, “everything i wanted”: I love “bad guy,” but if you want to hear something closer to Eilish’s true capacity, “everything i wanted,” while closer to sounding like a more straightforward pop song, is the one.

13. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Bright Horses”: Cave’s incredible two-album cycle processing grief and the loss of his son is best represented by this ode to the impossibility and necessity of hope.

12. Brittany Howard, “Stay High”: Jaime didn’t quite work for me as a full album, but this highlight makes me so happy every time I hear it.

11. Taylor Swift, “Soon You’ll Get Better (feat. The Chicks)”: This isn’t the first Taylor Swift song to make me cry, but it’s probably the one I’ve cried during the most.

10. Lana Del Rey, “F*ck it I love you”: If there’s any song that more succinctly sums up Del Rey’s appeal, I haven’t heard it. She’s an avatar for millennial malaise, high expectations with mild disappointment leading to self-medication in one way or another more often than not in her songs. In this one, she reaches for clichés (“California dreamin’, got money on my mind”) but ends up forsaking them for something ostensibly more meaningful in her lover, but succumbing to meaninglessness anyway.

9. John Moreland, “East October”: Trying to survive in a cruel world necessitates either hope or despair, and John Moreland’s music exists at the intersection between the two. This song leans into the despair of getting by as a sober person, without anything to ease the pain. But Moreland understands that the act of living is inherently connected to the spiritual, and the pain in this song is cut with the knowledge that there is a way, even if its somewhere above his understanding.

8. Taylor Swift, “Cornelia Street [Live from Paris]”: This is cheating a bit; this version of the song wasn’t released till May of this year, though the performance is from September 2019, so I’m counting it as a 2019 song. The original “Cornelia Street,” combining the fear of losing a good thing with an incredible sense of place within her memories, is pop perfection. But this version features Swift on acoustic guitar, and it’s an incredible example of the connection she can foster with her audience when she strips her songs down and lets her songwriting take center stage.

7. Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now”: Lipa broke the Best New Artist curse with this song. It should have been hard to replicate her early success, the propulsive pop anthems of “IDGAF” and “New Rules” matching any hit from the last ten years for addictiveness, but Future Nostalgia‘s first single has been the best of the bunch. Those first hits were precocious, rising above her status as a newcomer; “Don’t Start Now” solidifies her as a contender for one of the queens of pop.

6. Vampire Weekend, “Harmony Hall”: If you listen to Ezra Koenig tell it, this song is intensely political, carrying loaded themes of power and oppression. I believe him, but like many songs that reach for higher meaning, it needs to work on a visceral level as well, and “Harmony Hall” was probably the biggest balm for me of 2019. Sometimes I’d listen to it on repeat after a hard day and just be comforted by the acoustic guitar lick that forms the song’s backbone and by the plinking piano that gives it flavor, while repeating the refrain of “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t know why,” somehow finding in the paradox a salve.

5. Sharon Van Etten, “Seventeen”: Van Etten has always been one of a kind at painting her songs like the landscape of her inner mind, but she outdoes herself on this single from Remind Me Tomorrow. If her forte before this album was introspection, she takes a detour into retrospection for a song, diving into the freedom she felt as a teenager in New York City. I’ve never lived in New York City, but “Seventeen” perfectly captures for me the feeling at the titular age of having the world at your fingertips without any understanding of what time can do to you. It also sums up what seeing people that age now feels like, that they are somehow your “shadow.” Maybe it’s just a product of being in my thirties that songs like this, about the profundity of time passing, resonate with me. Or maybe it’s just a great song.

4. Taylor Swift, “Lover”: Swift has written a lot of songs about love, but she hasn’t written a lot of love songs, and there’s been a special dearth of them since 2012’s Red. Most of her songs about love look into the past at relationships since dissolved. “Lover” is the first in a long time, and it’s the most content she’s ever sounded. Swift likes a chorus that propels you into the upper stratosphere, and “Lover” doesn’t do that. Instead, “Lover” finds peace in current commitment with a view to a life of the same. That doesn’t sound exciting put that way, but it’s one of the most life-giving songs she’s ever written.

3. Our Native Daughters, “You’re Not Alone”: There are other uplifting songs on Songs of Our Native Daughters, but after an album about suffering and oppression, the folk supergroup chose to end it with a lullaby to the next generation, and it listens like the light breaking over the horizon. Group member Allison Russell wrote and sings the song specifically for her 5-year-old daughter, hoping she can face the world with the knowledge that she is loved by her earthly family and the host of African ancestors that faced the world before her. I know that I cannot draw from the same heritage that Russell is evoking here; it’s specific to her family, her people. But the wider themes of encouraging her daughter that she is connected to a history of love and strength in the face of a cruel world…yeah, I think that’s hitting home right about now.

2. Lana Del Rey, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it”: I already unpacked Del Rey’s puzzling lack of self-awareness regarding her privilege in the post about my favorite albums of 2019, and here’s an example of the exact opposite. If there’s an example of someone’s complexity perfectly reflecting the current state of culture, it’s Del Rey, and this song is the perfect reflection of that reflection. It’s what made her response to her critics so frustrating; songs like “hope” reveal that she does know her place in the world. She’s a certain kind of woman living a certain kind of life, and that means something specific.

Del Rey is known (and criticized) for playing into the stereotypes of a fragile woman, dependent and submissive to the men in her life, sometimes to the point of abuse, which is an archetype rife with land mines. I think she pulls it off, but your mileage may vary. A song like “hope” is about this tension though, “a modern day woman with a wake constitution” still maintaining the belief that life will get better. She thinks that the culture thinks hope isn’t an option for her, and she defies that notion. It’s the strongest song on a strong record, and I couldn’t get enough of it in 2019.

1. Blue Ivy, SAINt JHN, Beyoncé & WizKid, “BROWN SKIN GIRL”: You may be seeing a trend in these top three songs: female empowerment anthems that may or may not be meant for a daughter. I promise this isn’t a “as a father of a daughter” moment though; I liked these songs before we even knew we were having a child at all, let alone that she would be a girl. But I can’t deny that thinking about my daughter facing the world gives these songs extra power for me.

LION KING: THE GIFT is Beyoncé’s project, so it’s significant that she gives her daughter first billing on this song. Coming from Beyoncé later in the song, the song’s chorus is meant as an exhortation to her child to love herself, even if the world’s artificial standard of beauty doesn’t match up. But having Blue sing it at the beginning makes it sound like a mantra Blue has internalized, something that’s taken root in her heart.

I know this song is for Black girls of all shades and shapes and not for me. But it’s been good for my heart to listen to this song over and over again over the last year, feeling the pure love in Beyoncé’s words and the desire for her child to find her worth in something outside the wider culture. There’s common ground there for me; I don’t know what my daughter will be tempted to believe about herself from a world that doesn’t value the good things inside of her. But “Brown Skin Girl” is such a beautiful model for how a parent can shut the world out for her child and teach her what good really is.

Another Thirty Contenders (alphabetical by artist)

21 Savage, “a lot”

Angel Olsen, “Lark”

Ariana Grande, “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”

Better Oblivion Community Center, “Dylan Thomas”

Beyoncé, “SPIRIT”

Bill Callahan, “Lonesome Valley”

Bon Iver, “Faith”

DaBaby, “Suge”

FKA twigs, “cellophane”

HAIM, “Summer Girl”

The Highwomen, “Highwomen”

Holly Herndon, “Frontier”

Joan Shelley, “The Fading”

Joan Shelley, “The Sway”

John Moreland, “Harder Dreams”

Josh Garrels, “Follow”

Katy Perry, “Never Really Over”

Megan Thee Stallion, “Hot Girl Summer (feat. Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign)”

Miranda Lambert, “Fooled Around and Fell in Love (feat. Maren Morris, Elle King, Ashley McBryde, Tenille Townes & Caylee Hammack)”

Miranda Lambert, “Tequila Does”

Over the Rhine, “Broken Angels”

Purple Mountains, “All My Happiness Is Gone”

ROSALÍA, “Milionària”

Sam Smith, “How Do You Sleep?”

Selena Gomez, “Lose You to Love Me”

Sunday Service Choir, “Count Your Blessings”

Sunday Service Choir, “Revelations 19:1”

The Tallest Man on Earth, “I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream.”

Thom Yorke, “Dawn Chorus”

Young Thug, “Hot (feat. Gunna)”

Past Top Tens

2018

Ariana Grande, “thank u, next”
The 1975, “Love It If We Made It”
Ariana Grande, “no tears left to cry”
Drake, “Nice for What”
Janelle Monáe, “Make Me Feel”
Our Native Daughters, “Mama’s Cryin’ Long”
Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin, “I Like It”
Ariana Grande, “imagine”
Drake, “In My Feelings”
Courtney Marie Andrews, “May Your Kindness Remains”

2017

Sufjan Stevens, “Mystery of Love”
Brandi Carlile, “The Joke”
Selena Gomez, “Bad Liar”
Kesha, “Praying”
Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pa’lante”
Rhiannon Giddens, “Birmingham Sunday”
Lorde, “Green Light”
Propaganda, “Gentrify”
The War on Drugs, “Thinking of a Place”
Julien Baker, “Appointments”

2016

Kanye West, “Ultralight Beam”
Rae Sremmurd, “Black Beatles (feat. Gucci Mane)”
Rihanna, “Work (feat. Drake)”
Drive-By Truckers, “What It Means”
Chance the Rapper, “No Problem (feat. Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz)”
Leonard Cohen, “You Want It Darker”
Solange, “Cranes in the Sky”
Car Seat Headrest, “Fill in the Blank”
Lecrae, “Can’t Stop Me Now (Destination)”
Japandroids, “Near to the Wild Heart of Life”

2015

Leon Bridges, “River”
Sufjan Stevens, “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”
Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment, “Sunday Candy”
Blood Orange, “Sandra’s Smile”
Kendrick Lamar, “Alright”
Alessia Cara, “Here”
Justin Bieber, “Love Yourself”
Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney, “FourFiveSeconds”
Jack Ü, “Where Are Ü Now (with Justin Bieber)”
Miguel, “Coffee (F***ing) (feat. Wale)”

2014

FKA twigs, “Two Weeks”
Strand of Oaks, “Goshen ’97”
The War on Drugs, “Red Eyes”
John Mark McMillan, “Future / Past”
First Aid Kit, “Waitress Song”
Sia, “Chandelier”
Jackie Hill Perry, “I Just Wanna Get There”
Taylor Swift, “Out of the Woods”
Parquet Courts, “Instant Disassembly”
Sharon Van Etten, “Your Love Is Killing Me”

Music Bummys: Best Albums of 2019

Top Ten

10. Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride: Vampire Weekend have been an indie rock staple for the last twelve years. I remember listening to their debut album during my freshman year of college having mostly had a diet of Christian music and classic rock up till that point, so I was a little befuddled by what I was listening to and why I loved it so much. Nothing they’ve made since has had quite the same effect on me, until Father of the Bride, which was on repeat for much of the latter part of last year. The band has gotten more collaborative and less derivative, and Father of the Bride is the result of artists who are more comfortable with relying on good hooks without getting bogged down in trying to make something more than good pop music. It’s the most relaxed they’ve sounded in years, and as a result it sounds like they stumbled onto their best album in years.

9. Bon Iver, i,i: Much of the same could be applied to Bon Iver. They debuted the same year, and they’ve been pillars of the indie music community ever since. The difference is that their albums have consistently been showing up on these lists, so it’s hard for me to pick the best among them all. Every album since the beginning has felt like a refinement of Justin Vernon’s vision, from the more straightforward folk of For Emma, through the pop filtered through AM radio on the self-titled album, to the totally deconstructed folktronica on 22, a Million, and all of them have presented a view of the world somewhere between hope and anxiety. i,i feels like Vernon crested some kind of wave of anxiety with 22 and is more hopeful in its aftermath, giving us flashes of the narrative dissonance on 22 while shifting his focus in its themes toward uplift and community. It’s a welcome direction, and it may be their warmest record yet.

8. FKA twigs, MAGDALENE: When FKA twigs released her first album, LP1, in 2014, I dismissed her music as brooding and obtuse, as if those were bad things. Later the next year, I named her song “Two Weeks” as my top song of 2014, so clearly she grew on me. This is her first full-length since, and it’s a supreme step forward in both confidence and execution. On LP1, twigs found joy in playing around with one’s expectations for R&B music, casting about for a direction worth moving in. On MAGDALENE, she’s forging her own path forward, staking claim to control over all aspects over all aspects of her life while the world rejects her claims at every turn. This leads to her most assured songs yet, holding up over the album’s full length with music that sounds like almost nothing else. She finds inspiration in the persona of Mary Magdalene as a judged woman to rise above the culture’s collective expectations for what she should do with her life, her body, and her art.

7. Taylor Swift, Lover: It’s fascinating to look back on Lover after the 2020 release of folklore. Remembering the Lover rollout, much like remembering the reputation rollout, is to remember the underwhelming first singles. But by now we should realize that Swift’s album-making should never be doubted on the basis of her marketing, because Lover is a return to form for her after the uneven (but still pretty good!) reputation after the perfection of 1989. It shouldn’t be surprising that the artist who has been one of the best songwriters alive since she was in high school can fill an album with great pop songs. And yet it still amazes me that her pop albums are the documents that so consistently reflect the state her generation as she’s gotten older. Lover is the album of a thirty-year-old grappling with insecurity, commitment, and her aging parents. Stars aren’t just like us, but I’ll be damned if Taylor Swift doesn’t keep convincing me she is.

6. Ariana Grande, thank u, next: After everything that’s happened in 2020, I almost forgot what Ariana pulled off in the 10-month period from April 2018 to February 2019, rolling out two different near-pitch-perfect pop albums in the wake of the 2017 Manchester suicide bombing at her concert. If you don’t put much stock in the importance of pop music, that’s fine, but I tend to think of all art as having a cultural and personal significance. Ariana’s thank u, next set a standard in a cultural way, taking a step beyond most female empowerment projects’ speculative nature to embody the very ideal of what a woman in power might sound like, from the economic latitude of “7 rings” to the romantic domination of “break up with your girlfriend.” And the significance that the album must have for Ariana personally, in the ardent optimism of “imagine” to the self-love of “thank u, next,” is what seals the deal for me on continuing to revisit this album.

5. Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains: I had never listened to any of David Berman’s previous musical project, Silver Jews, so Purple Mountains hit me like a sucker punch. It’s impossible not to listen to this album in light of Berman’s suicide one month after its release. This makes it difficult not to read too much into these songs as cries for help. Songs like “All My Happiness Is Gone” (“I confess I’m barely hanging on”) and “That’s Just the Way That I Feel” (“The end of all wanting is all I’ve been wanting”) sound like message from the brink. It’s a dark album, but there is something life-giving in Berman’s honesty, his willingness to empty his soul in his music. That darkness is a part of life too, and actively listening to someone face it feels like a necessary act of living.

4. Beyoncé, Lion King: The Gift: Smarter people than me were critiquing this album for failing to be a full representation of the continent of Africa, neglecting to include East or North African artists. They also found that Bey had nothing new to add to genres (namely Afropop and South African house) that are already finding growing worldwide popularity. But I can’t get behind these critiques, because while for them The Gift may not tick all the boxes needed for a masterpiece of pan-African or diaspora culture, it was for me an incredible window into Beyoncé’s vision of blackness’s ties to an extraordinary history. It’s good to call for better representation and more innovation, but those criticisms don’t address the fact that The Gift is front-to-back bangers. When an artist is so sure of her vision and holds an entire culture in the palm of her hand, a flawed statement is still a masterpiece.

3. Joan Shelley, Like the River Loves the Sea: Joan Shelley has been making music since 2010 and has appeared in the annals of this weblog since 2014, when she released what could be termed her breakthrough album, Electric Ursa – that is, if she had really had anything to break through or had been trying to break through anything. Shelley’s music isn’t really the kind of music that breaks anything, unless you count hearts. She’s appeared on these lists in the past for the kind of spare folk music she’s become known for, for masterful albums that need little ornamentation to elevate them. What sets apart Like the River from her older work is a new poise, slight enough that it’s of a piece with the rest of her catalog and present enough that Shelley sounds like she’s writing from a new perspective: as one taking ownership of her comfort and pleasure rather than one only wishing for them.

2. Lana Del Rey, Norman F*cking Rockwell!: There’s a song on NFR called “The Next Best American Record,” which isn’t even close to my favorite song on the album but sums up the album’s ambitions perfectly. No, I don’t mean this is Del Rey’s attempt to make a grandiose, critically revered statement album that sums up the modern American experience. I mean Del Rey is doing that while scoffing at the very idea. After all, on a song called “Venice Bitch,” she describes herself as “fresh out of f*cks forever,” and on “The greatest,” she declares that “the culture is lit.” That’s not the language of someone concerned with serious album-making.

Yet the landscape that Del Rey crafts on NFR with the help of pop super-producer Jack Antonoff, a hazy version of classic pop orchestration utilizing every instrument from harps to flugelhorns, together with her voice, which Del Rey has honed ever since 2011’s “Video Games” into a dynamic weapon of faux delicateness, are marks of a a serious album. And for as cheeky as her lyrics are, Del Rey is remarkable at walking the line between honest and acidic. There’s sarcasm at play here, but there’s also sensitivity.

Del Rey made some news earlier this year for implying on Instagram that female artists of color get to make music about sex without criticism, while she gets critiqued for glamorizing abuse. It was hardly the first Lana Del Rey controversy, but it was the most indicative of her place in the culture. She benefits from all the pop-music tropes she likes to twist, but is unaware that those are uniquely white tropes. She’s almost unquestionably less popular than the artists she called out but is still nominated for Grammys and has access to producers like Antonoff.

Del Rey’s lack of self-awareness is ironic, given how incisively she observes American culture. But maybe that’s appropriate. After all, if there’s any culture that lacks self-awareness, it’s America’s. So with all her gifts and with all her flaws, Lana Del Rey is the mirror America deserves. For better or for worse, she made the most recent best American record.

1. Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters: Before this February, I would not have expected an album inspired by a museum to top this list. But that month I visited the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., before everything shut down. That museum, part of the Smithsonian complex, provides an immersive experience in the history of slavery on its bottom floors. It was impossible to remain unmoved by the stories told in those exhibits.

Those very stories inspired Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell to form a folk supergroup and write music honoring the history of African-American women in particular. These songs are both personal and empathetic. They are not just stories of tragedy, though there are some of those (“Mama’s Cryin’ Long,” “Blood and Bones”), but also stories of resilience and liberty (“Quasheba, Quasheba,” “You’re Not Alone”), often in the same songs. This album doesn’t fall into the twin traps of fetishizing suffering or turning a blind eye to it.

Most of these songs are story songs, told from someone else’s perspective. The women in this group are masters at creating these kinds of songs, using their crafts (singing and banjo-playing) to transport the listener to a different time and place to confront the feelings and thoughts of people not like them. This is a gift of some of my favorite artists – Bruce Springsteen and Patty Griffin to name a couple – and is one of the more potent remedies for selfishness.

But that can sound a bit like eating your vegetables, and Songs of Our Native Daughters is nothing if not a collection of beautiful music. This is a transportive experience, not a history lesson. It draws from historical narratives but explores them with the contours of blues and bluegrass. No album I listened to in 2019 was as triumphant as Our Native Daughters’. Perhaps 2020 has colored that opinion, but listening to the album today makes it feel more like a fact.

Another Fifteen Contenders (alphabetical by artist)

Angel Olsen, All Mirrors: The best chamber-pop album of the year.

Billie Eilish, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?: The best horror movie of the year.

Caroline Spence, Mint Condition: A pure country experience.

Ondara, Tales of America: The most incredible voice I heard from 2019.

Jamila Woods, LEGACY! LEGACY!: LEGACY felt like an announcement to the world that Woods is a singular artist.

Josh Garrels, Chrysaline: The best worship album of the year; just missed out on the Top Ten.

Kings Kaleidoscope, Zeal: The best non-worship Christian album of the year.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen: An incredible exploration of grief.

Over the Rhine, Love & Revelation: This duo has never gotten its due, and this album is a continuation of an incredible career in Americana.

PUP, Morbid Stuff: The best rock band working today.

Sharon Van Etten, Remind Me Tomorrow: Another album that just missed the Top Ten, Van Etten’s foray into adolescent insecurity as she faces being a mother contains some of the most propulsive hooks of the year.

Sunday Service Choir, JESUS IS BORN: I never got a chance to write about this record, but it’s the best thing Kanye has done in ten years.

The Tallest Man on Earth, I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream: Kristian Matsson’s one of Sweden’s best folk exports, and this album is his most joyous yet.

Weyes Blood, Titanic Rising: The best chamber-folk album of the year.

Young Thug, So Much Fun: Thugger isn’t my favorite rapper alive, but he’s my favorite combination of prolific and consistent, and So Much Fun adds to that reputation.

Past Top Tens

2018

Brandi Carlile, By the Way, I Forgive You
The 1975, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
Ariana Grande, Sweetener
Robyn, Honey
Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer
Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour
Cardi B, Invasion of Privacy
Sandra McCracken, Songs from the Valley
The Carters, EVERYTHING IS LOVE
Courtney Marie Andrews, May Your Kindness Remain

2017

Gang of Youths, Go Farther in Lightness
Rhiannon Giddens, Freedom Highway
Propaganda, Crooked
Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Navigator
Father John Misty, Pure Comedy
Kendrick Lamar, DAMN.
The War on Drugs, A Deeper Understanding
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, The Nashville Sound
Joan Shelley, Joan Shelley
Lorde, Melodrama

2016

Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book
Beyoncé, Lemonade
Sturgill Simpson, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
Car Seat Headrest, Teens of Denial
Solange, A Seat at the Table
Miranda Lambert, The Weight of These Wings
Sho Baraka, The Narrative
Bon Iver, 22, a Million
Courtney Marie Andrews, Honest Life
Jeff Rosenstock, WORRY.

2015

Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
Leon Bridges, Coming Home
Phil Cook, Southland Mission
Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell
Alabama Shakes, Sound & Color
David Ramirez, Fables
John Moreland, High on Tulsa Heat
Ben Rector, Brand New
The Tallest Man on Earth, Dark Bird Is Home
Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

2014

John Mark McMillan, Borderland
Sharon Van Etten, Are We There
The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
Strand of Oaks, HEAL
Taylor Swift, 1989
Liz Vice, There’s a Light
Jackie Hill Perry, The Art of Joy
First Aid Kit, Stay Gold
Miranda Lambert, Platinum
Propaganda, Crimson Cord

The Lived-In Music of John Moreland

I’m not a regular concert-goer; it’s just not something my wife and I prioritize. However, now that we are unable to see live music for the foreseeable future, I find myself thinking through some of my favorite concert memories. There are plenty on a large scale: The Carters and Taylor Swift killing it at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, U2 filling the edges of the University of Oklahoma’s stadium, singing along with the Boss and all his friends at an outdoor venue in Houston. 

But the most transcendent moments have always been at smaller venues, like healing with Ben Rector at Cain’s Ballroom after a couple of Oklahoma-based traumas. These smaller experiences are naturally more introspective, and they lend themselves to sharing more intimate moments with those you love, like reflecting on Andrew Peterson’s “Dancing in the Minefields” in Linden, TX, with my wife a few months after our wedding, or holding my mom’s hand not long after her parents died while Patty Griffin sings about heaven. The big concerts built up memories; the smaller ones built up my identity.

I imagine seeing John Moreland in concert would be much like the latter. Moreland is a Tulsa-based singer-songwriter who has operated in and with bands over the first ten years of his career, but has grown in popularity over the last ten years as a solo act. He’s been writing about the tension between identity and belief for much of that time. While Moreland’s style isn’t anything you haven’t heard before, especially if you’ve ever seen live music at a bar in Oklahoma, you’ve never heard anyone who can turn a phrase quite like him.

Moreland’s tour in support of LP5 has been postponed, but parsing his lyrics through headphones at home is its own reward. Writing about grappling with one’s identity has been like second nature to Moreland since his breakout 2013 record In the Throes. He sings on that album, “I worshiped at the altar of losing everything / And the guard I held together / Was losing all its shape.” It’s always been hard to separate who he is from how other people see him, particularly people he loves.

The songs on LP5 are a continuation of this story, though the swirl of despair sounds less dangerous. Instead, Moreland has affected a maturity that adds a certain potency to his plight. He’s on surer ground now, even if the ground is never completely solid. “I had a thought about darkness, a thought’s just a passing train / When you feel your weakest somebody knows your name.” Getting married in 2016 may have placed him on a stronger foundation, so while the grief is less urgent, it’s more complex now. “Crowded in for the sins we studied on silver screens / Couldn’t wait til we graduated to harder dreams.”

Moreland has publicly lamented his reputation for sad songs. He has a point; who doesn’t sing sad songs? His last album, Big Bad Luv, sought to shed the sad-sack label with a wider mix of genres. LP5 continues that growth with producer Matt Pence adding some wrinkles to the production. There are deep drum beats and drum machine effects that have never before appeared on Moreland’s records. Album closer “Let Me Be Understood” feels piped in from another dimension. And across the album, the piano and mellotron add to the expanding atmosphere, allowing for a wider variety of emotions that just grief.

But there’s something in Moreland’s gravelly voice that communicates a depth to his emotions that other artist’s lack. And his lyrics, full of references to the holy and the divine, understand that the search for one’s identity lies outside oneself. It’s hard to pretend that Moreland isn’t a master of the sad song when there are bars like this on his album: “You gave me a restlessness that lives deep down in my bones / And a pretty good reason to keep right on being alone.”

Maybe I respond so heavily to Moreland because I’m in a similar life stage, years into a job and a marriage with my self-view permanently altered from who I thought I was before my 20s. Our identities have been cracked, yet somehow strengthened. Because of this, John Moreland seems well-suited to those transcendent concert moments in smaller venues. I can imagine being in a room full of chattering people quieted down as he starts singing, “But darlin’ when you reach for me / It feels just like infinity / Honey help me break this curse / Howling at the universe again,” building up my memories and my identity all at once.

If I Ran the 2020 Grammys

Well, this is the 7th time I’ve done this Grammys post, and if there were ever a year the title was prescient and necessary, it’s this year. Most people are going to wake up on Sunday, January 26th, go to Sunday brunch, take an afternoon nap, and then turn on the red carpet coverage without a care in the world. Most people will just blithely look forward to Lizzo or Ariana Grande performing. Most people will be blissfully unaware that the Grammys are in turmoil, bubbling under the surface of the overcrowded tribute songs and Alicia Keys’s game attempts to make the night interesting.

I, unfortunately, am not most people. I have paid attention, and it has been brought to my attention that everything we suspected about the Grammys (that they were corrupt, biased, sexist, and racist) is true. Or at least alleged to be true by the current CEO, Deborah Dugan, who was placed on administrative leave sometime in December and who subsequently filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In the complaint, Dugan claims the CEO before her, Neil Portnow (who infamously claimed that female artists needed to “step up” when asked about poor representation on radio and in the industry) had a rape claim made against him before he left after his contract was up last July. She also claimed that an attorney retained by the Recording Academy (which oversees the Grammy Awards), Joel Katz, had sexually harassed her. On top of those two statements, Dugan also alleged corruption in the Grammy nomination process, as well as on the organization’s executive board itself.

You can find an explainer for all of that here. It appears as if the Recording Academy is continuing to resist change, furthering and solidifying the concept that the Grammys will forever be stuck in a different era with nary a forward-thinking bone in their leadership. In the past, this manifested as weird nomination choices and weirder winner choices. Now, it appears that something far more sinister is going on.

In the meantime, I’ll do what I usually do and try to fix the nominations, predict the winners, and change the genres around. I did significantly less genres this year. One reason for this was that I found I was often drawing genre lines based on race, which is why I no longer have an R&B or Soul category. Those albums were often more suited to pop or Americana anyway, and I tended to associate black acts with those categories. I don’t want to do that anymore.

I also got rid of the Christian category. The albums I was forcing into that category can compete against secular albums just fine. My feelings have grown more mixed about the idea of an entire industry built around Christian music anyway, so I’m ready to move past that concept. I’m sure the entire Christian music industrial complex will follow my example and liquidate its assets to give to the poor.

A few ground rules:

1) I’ll give the real nominees with my prediction for the winner in bold. Then I’ll give you who I would have nominated, with my choice for the best in that group in bold.

2) We all know the October 1st, 2018-September 30th, 2019 qualifying dates are stupid, but we’re going to keep them in the interest of chaos. I can’t fix everything about the Grammys. So JESUS IS KING is out, but The 1975’s A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (from 2018, but released in November) is fair game.

3) For the four major awards (Album, Record, Song, New Artist), I’m realistic. The Tallest Man on Earth and Our Native Daughters made two of my favorite albums in the qualifying year, but they’re too niche to be nominated for Album of the Year. However, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift also released albums I loved, and they’re plausible options for the big one. But when it comes to the genre awards, anything goes- hence, artists like Over the Rhine, Jamila Woods, and Charly Bliss getting nods over more popular acts in their respective categories.

4) Even with less genres, genre boundaries are still fuzzy- Chance’s and Jamila’s albums could really fit into pop or hip-hop, PUP and Kings Kaleidoscope could easily be considered alternative instead of rock, The Lion King: The Gift has equal elements of hip-hop and pop, etc. So I went with my gut. I don’t have your gut, so if you disagree with me on whether or not Josh Garrels belongs in the alternative or Americana category, sorry.

I’ll start with the main awards.

Album of the Year

Real nominees: Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Billie Eilish, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?
Bon Iver, i, i
H.E.R., I Used to Know Her
Lana Del Rey, Norman F***ing Rockwell!
Lil Nas X, 7 EP
Lizzo, Cuz I Love You (Deluxe)
Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride

My nominees: The 1975, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Beyoncé, The Lion King: The Gift
Bon Iver, i, i
Lana Del Rey, Norman F***ing Rockwell!
Pistol Annies, Interstate Gospel
Robyn, Honey
Taylor Swift, Lover

I came late to Billie Eilish, only listening to WHEN WE FALL within the last week. I’ve loved it so far, but it’s a little late for me to have added it to my nominees, so I’m going to stick with what I have. That won’t stop her at the actual ceremony, however. She’s in for a possible sweep of the Big Four, which hasn’t happened since 1981 when Christopher Cross beat Pink Floyd’s The Wall for Album, Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” for Record, Irene Cara’s “Fame” for Song, and The Pretenders for New Artist. (Yikes.) She’s currently favored for all but Record, in which Lil Nas X has the edge.

The thing is that Lizzo actually has the most nominations of any artist and could easily procure a sweep of her own. The argument for Lizzo is that she draws so much from established genre tropes, while Eilish’s music is a little unsettling if not entirely unconventional. Eilish has been the favorite for about a year now, which could mean she’s too entrenched to be unseated or that voters are tired of her. My guess is that Eilish will ride the wave of support from her New Artist wins at both the American Music Awards and MTV Video Music Awards to at least three of the four awards. I’m betting on four of four though.

I loved seeing Lana Del Rey get a nod here and in Song, her first Big Four nominations. That album is my favorite of the year, and it’s hard to see it getting upended before the Bummys in August. Ariana is also a welcome sight, and it will be nice to see her perform after last year’s kerfuffle with the show’s producer, Ken Ehrlich, who will step down after this year’s show. Swift was fully expected to be among the nominees, given she’s been a perennial favorite of the Academy’s, but I suppose that was before she started stepping on the toes of powerful people. Lover was a more complete album than reputation and deserved to earn her a nomination.

I like Lizzo, but her two albums before Cuz I Love You were better. Cuz I Love You leans a little too hard into her self-mythology, amping up the polish and sacrificing some of the rawness of her independent-label output. I’d rather see Robyn (who has only been nominated in Dance category) get some Big Four love for Honey, which is an all-time great sad-pop record. I could also do without H.E.R., who continues to be a very solid artist getting way more attention than expected from the Academy, and Lil Nas X, who had a stellar year with a couple of massive hits on a so-so EP.

I’m a little puzzled by the lack of love for The Lion King: The Gift, which I thought was a marvel of a showcase for African artists. I’m similarly puzzled by the love for Bon Iver’s i, i, not because it’s bad, but because frontman Justin Vernon vocally hates the Grammys, and it’s hard to believe the Academy would respond to an obtuse album like this, as great as it is. I’d definitely pick it for my nominees though. I’d knock Vampire Weekend off and throw some love to The 1975, who made my favorite record of 2018 with their breakout A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships. This era is dominated by pop, so I’m not surprised they haven’t broken through into the Big Four, since they’re generally pegged as rock, though they’re more genre-fluid than that.

And finally, I’d highlight one Americana record from the Miranda Lambert-led supergroup Pistol Annies. Twenty years from now, when the men who currently run the Recording Academy are giving interviews at the end of their careers, interviewers will ask them about the Grammys’ and music industry’s record with female artists. They will point to Album wins for Taylor Swift, Adele, and Kacey Musgraves. And those of us without too much earwax in our ears will say the name, “Miranda Lambert,” who has only ever been nominated for Grammys in the Country genre. Then we’ll drop the mic right on their toes, still sore from Swift stepping on them, and walk out of the room, confident in our good taste.

Record of the Year

Real nominees: Ariana Grande, “7 Rings”
Billie Eilish, “bad guy”
Bon Iver, “Hey, Ma”
H.E.R., “Hard Place”
Khalid, “Talk”
Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road [Remix] (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)”
Lizzo, “Truth Hurts”
Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower”

My nominees: Ariana Grande, “thank u, next”
Beyoncé, “BROWN SKIN GIRL (feat. SAINt JHN, Wizkid & Blue Ivy Carter)”
Billie Eilish, “bad guy”
Bon Iver, “Hey, Ma”
Katy Perry, “Never Really Over”
Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road [Remix] (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)”
Post Malone & Swae Lee, “Sunflower”
Taylor Swift, “Lover”

The distinction between Record and Song of the Year is unclear to most people who watch the Grammys, but Record is for the performance and the production, while Song is for the songwriting. I struggle every year with good songs to determine where the line is supposed to be between those aspects. But now that we have some evidence that the committees involved in the nomination process are rigging it anyway, I’ve decided I don’t care and will just try to include as many songs as I can between the two categories, with only the truly great songs garnering nods in both.

The odds currently favor Lil Nas X in this category. “Old Town Road” was such a massive and unexpected hit that I’d have no problem with that. But I think Billie Eilish is going to sweep the Big Four, and it’s hard to argue that the performance and the production of “bad guy” are less deserving than the songwriting. Lizzo also stands a chance. Everyone else is just happy to be here.

It’s fun to see “Sunflower” and “Hey, Ma” here, two songs that I loved that I would not have expected the Academy to recognize. I like “Talk” and “Hard Place,” but not enough to place them in the top 8 records of the year. Instead, I’d rather include the best song from the Lion King compilation and the title song off of Swift’s album, both of which are marvelous examples of how their respective artists have grown.

I didn’t include “Truth Hurts,” because it came out 3 years ago at this point. The Grammys have some way of nominating songs like this that reach a certain level of popularity a certain amount of time after they were released, and like everything else, this process lacks transparency. In my Grammys, “Truth Hurts” is a great song, but not eligible for this award. Instead let’s give Katy Perry a slot for the best song she’s ever written. “Never Really Over” is somehow underrated after Perry being overrated for most of her career.

As far as who I would pick to win this category, I’d go with Ariana Grande, though not for the song they nominated. “7 rings” is cheeky and fun, but the standout Ariana single from the qualifying period is clearly “thank u, next.” Ken Ehrlich wouldn’t let Ariana perform “thank u, next” at last year’s ceremony, which prompted her to drop out of performing at all. I’m not saying this is why the Academy chose “7 rings” over “thank u, next,” but I am saying that the Academy sucks.

Song of the Year

Real nominees: Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy”
H.E.R., “Hard Place”
Lady Gaga, “Always Remember Us This Way”
Lana Del Rey, “Norman f***ing Rockwell”
Lewis Capaldi, “Someone You Loved”
Lizzo, “Truth Hurts”
Tanya Tucker, “Bring My Flowers Now”
Taylor Swift, “Lover”

My nominees: Ariana Grande, “thank u, next”
Beyoncé, “BROWN SKIN GIRL (feat. SAINt JHN, Wizkid & Blue Ivy Carter)”
Big Thief, “Not”
Brittany Howard, “Stay High”
Katy Perry, “Never Really Over”
Lana Del Rey, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it”
Taylor Swift, “Lover”
Vampire Weekend, “Harmony Hall”

As long as we’re distinguishing between songwriting and performing/producing, I’ll say that there are better-written songs on WHEN WE FALL than “bad guy,” but the song is such a juggernaut that it doesn’t matter. Billie Eilish is all but assured to win this. Again, Lizzo may sneak ahead of her, which we can chalk up to the Academy voters being more comfortable with a song that has a traditional structure. I could also see the Academy giving this award to Tanya Tucker, totally rejecting youth culture as a big middle finger to anyone pushing for a more forward-thinking awards ceremony.

It’s a little surprising that this is the only major award A Star Is Born was nominated for. An Album of the Year nomination was fully expected, and this nomination feels like settling for that soundtrack, especially since this song is far from the first, second, or third song you remember from that movie. Also surprising is that this is Swift’s only Big Four nomination this year, but I guess that’s what she gets for standing up to one of the most powerful men in music.

The holdovers from Record among my nominations are Ariana, Beyoncé, Perry, and Swift. I’m confused by the lack of love for the Lion King compilation in general, but especially for “BROWN SKIN GIRL,” which was something of an Internet phenomenon upon its release. I can’t think of a single reason a song like this wouldn’t be nominated by the Recording Academy. Nope. Not one.

I also included songs from Big Thief and Vampire Weekend that dominated my playlists this year. The Big Thief song is a little bit of a stretch, but the Grammys nominated the Brooklyn band for Best Alternative Album, so they’re at least on the radar. Alabama Shakes has been nominated for Album of the Year in the past, so it’s not crazy to imagine Brittany Howard getting nominated for the best song from her bold solo album. And I’d sub Lana’s title song out for “hope,” which is still breathtaking for me even after my hundredth or so listen.

Best New Artist

Real nominees: Billie Eilish
Black Pumas
Lil Nas X
Lizzo
Maggie Rogers
ROSALÍA
Tank and the Bangas
Yola

My nominees: Better Oblivion Community Center
Billie Eilish
The Highwomen
Lil Nas X
Our Native Daughters
ROSALÍA

Best New Artist is  known for being a terrible category, but the Grammys track record of anointing a hot artist as one to watch is a little better than you might think. Running through the category’s history turns up a lot of one-hit wonders, but also a lot of artists that have had staying power. This award is Billie Eilish’s to lose, though Lizzo is right there on her heels. Again, this is hard to predict, but they both seem to me like artists with more to say who can last.

It’s fun seeing ROSALÍA represented here, as I had thought she was more niche than she is; she’s actually blown up in a really cool way over the last year. Lil Nas X is deserving based on the strength of “Old Town Road” and “Panini” alone, even if he has yet to show he has any other cards up his sleeve. If I had listened to their albums earlier, I may have included both Maggie Rogers and Tank and the Bangas on my list. Black Pumas and Yola, on the other hand, didn’t stand out to be enough to make it into my top tier.

I cheated a little bit with my nominations, including three low-key supergroups that have artists that are definitely already established. Better Oblivion Community Center is a collaboration between Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes fame). The Highwomen are Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. And Our Native Daughters are Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell. All of these groups released their debut albums during the qualifying period, so I’m going with it. The work that Our Native Daughters did on their debut was particularly astounding, so they’d get my top pick.

Best Alternative Music Album

Real nominees: Big Thief, U.F.O.F.
Bon Iver, i, i
James Blake, Assume Form
Thom Yorke, ANIMA
Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride

My nominees: boygenius, boygenius EP
Bon Iver, i, i
Sharon Van Etten, Remind Me Tomorrow
The Tallest Man on Earth, I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream.
Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride

I’ve got no problem with the nominees for this category. Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend have clearly reached upperclassmen status to have been included in the Big Four nominations, so it makes sense they would be nominated here too. Thom Yorke is Thom Yorke, and at this point, James Blake is James Blake, though it’s a little weird that he’s here instead of Dance/Electronic. I liked Two Hands, Big Thief’s second album released in 2019, more than U.F.O.F., but it’s fun that an up-and-coming indie band got recognized.

Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend get to stay in my nominees, as both albums are both extremely listenable and endlessly interesting snapshots of both artists’ musical progression. Sharon Van Etten’s fifth album gets one of my slots; after her breakout fourth album, Are We There, Van Etten leans away from confessional songwriting and toward something more obtuse, but no less beautiful. boygenius deserves a nod for their debut EP as a supergroup (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus) after I gave them Best New Artist last year. And my winner would be The Tallest Man on Earth, who keeps finding new ways to make his brand of Swedish folk into ever-expanding musicscapes.

Best Americana Album

Real nominees (Country Album): Eric Church, Desperate Man
Pistol Annies, Interstate Gospel
Reba McEntire, Stronger Than the Truth
Tanya Tucker, While I’m Livin’
Thomas Rhett, Center Point Road

My nominees: Joan Shelley, Like the River Loves the Sea
Josh Garrels, Chrysaline
Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters
Over the Rhine, Love & Revelation
Pistol Annies, Interstate Gospel

Tanya Tucker clearly has the support with the Song of the Year nomination, perhaps because it was co-produced by Brandi Carlile, who emerged as a Grammy favorite last year with 6 nominations. It’s also a nice comeback story for Tucker after a 50-year career that started during her outlaw country years in the 1970s. Rhett is an up-and-comer, while Reba and Church are Grammy mainstays at this point. This is Pistol Annies’ first nomination and Miranda Lambert’s 16th. She’s only got 2 wins to her name, so I’d love for this to be the 3rd, as unlikely as it is.

These categories get confusing, because the Grammys have several Roots categories as well as an Americana category and a Bluegrass category. It shouldn’t get that confusing though, because none of my nominees were nominated in any of those other categories. Joan Shelley, a Kentucky-based musician, has become one of my favorite roots musicians with her spare instrumentation and spellbinding voice. Over the Rhine, based out of Cincinnati, have been at this for some time, mastering the folk genre and bending their style into other genres as well. Josh Garrels, from South Bend, has produced some of the more beautiful folk music centered around Christian themes this decade, and his most recent album is designed to function as a musical liturgy. But the best Americana album of the year was by far Songs of Our Native Daughters (seen above winning Best New Artist in my world), which paints a clear picture of our American history that was built on the back of violence and callous disregard for the value of human life.

Best Hip-Hop Album

Real nominees (Rap Album): 21 Savage, i am > i was
Dreamville & J. Cole, Revenge of the Dreamers III
Meek Mill, Championships
Tyler, the Creator, Igor
YBN Cordae, The Lost Boy

My nominees: Beyoncé, The Lion King: The Gift
Chance the Rapper, The Big Day
Jamila Woods, LEGACY! LEGACY!
Young Thug, So Much Fun

This year both hip-hop and rock suffered in my listening habits. I was only able to cobble together four nominees for both of those genres. If you look at the nominees, it’s not hard to see why. There’s only one artist here that has established himself as a major artist, and that’s Tyler, the Creator. This is his second nomination for Rap Album, and while all of these albums were well-received, Tyler’s was the only one that lingered in the culture through the end of the year.

However, Tyler isn’t my bag. I’ve given each of his albums a try, and he hasn’t clicked for me. Young Thug has definitely clicked for me on almost all of his albums, especially this most recent, which isn’t his best but might be his most polished with the most accessible hooks. Jamila Woods is probably best known for her featured singing on a couple of Chance-related songs (“Sunday Candy,” “Blessings”), but her second album, a step up in ambition from her first, leans enough into hip-hop traditions for it to qualify here. Speaking of Chance, The Big Day wasn’t particularly well-received, but it’s growing on me enough to convince me that it’s actually good and deserves recognition. But the best hip-hop album of the year was Beyoncé’s Lion King compilation, which followed in the footsteps of Kendrick’s curation of the Black Panther album by showcasing some of hip-hop’s underheard talent. The Academy nominated this in the Pop Vocal category, but one listen makes it clear this is a hip-hop album through and through.

Best Pop Album

Real nominees (Pop Vocal Album): Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Beyoncé, The Lion King: The Gift
Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Ed Sheeran, No.6 Collaborations Project
Taylor Swift, Lover

My nominees: Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Lana Del Rey, Norman F***ing Rockwell!
Nao, Saturn
Robyn, Honey
Taylor Swift, Lover

As I said above, Billie Eilish would likely have made these lists if I had listened to her earlier in the year. As such, she’ll have to comfort herself with winning actual Grammys. No surprise to see Ariana and Taylor present here, and Beyoncé’s compilation fits in this category fine. Sheeran has been getting nominated for Grammys since his first single, “The A Team,” was nominated for Song of the Year in 2013, but it’s a little surprising he didn’t slip into the Big Four this year.

My nominees include Nao, who is nominated this year in the Urban Contemporary Album category and who has never made a bad song, and Robyn, whose comeback album was completely ignored and who was hugely influential on all the biggest pop stars of the 2010s. The winner would be the artist that would win Album of the Year, Lana Del Rey, because it’s only logical for her to be nominated and most likely win in her genre if the album’s received an Album of the Year nomination. What’s that? You mean the Grammys nominated Norman F***ing Rockwell for Album of the Year and not in her genre? You mean the Grammys are stupid and don’t make any sense? Someone should fix these things!

Best Rock Album

Real nominees: Bring Me the Horizon, amo
Cage the Elephant, Social Cues
The Cranberries, In the End
I Prevail, Trauma
Rival Sons, Feral Roots

My nominees: The 1975, A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
Charly Bliss, Young Enough
Kings Kaleidoscope, Zeal
PUP, Morbid Stuff

Remember how I detailed the Rap Album nominees to demonstrate how this was a down year for hip-hop? Well, I’m not even sure I should point you to the real nominees for Rock Album, lest I give you whiplash or lockjaw. I know who Cage the Elephant is and The Cranberries, and that’s the extent of my understanding of this category. I originally thought “amo” was the name of the band and “Bring Me the Horizon” was the name of the album, by the way. I mean, good for these bands. Far be it from me to begrudge less-popular acts from getting their moment in the son.

The issue is with the Academy’s process itself, which seems to ignore vast swaths of rock music in favor of groups associated with certain members of the genre’s elite. I’m not here to cast aspersions on these bands, but there are really cool things happening on the edges of rock scenes around the world. Charly Bliss and PUP are rising stars in Brooklyn and Toronto, respectively, and both their newest albums honor the genre’s past while pushing forward our ideas of what rock can be. I’m not surprised Kings Kaleidoscope wasn’t nominated; even in the Seattle-based band’s Christian music industry circles, they’re almost like black sheep for including a curse word on their 2016 album, Beyond Control. Zeal is their most ambitious album yet, rewarding for its exploration of what faith looks like in the real world.

But the most obvious snub of all is The 1975, which became a legitimate phenomenon with A Brief Inquiry. They play around the edges of pop, sure, but their entire ethos is about as rock and roll as you can get. The Grammys know who they are; they nominated “Give Yourself a Try” in the Rock Song category this year, so that means they recognize them as rock music as well. If I needed one category to sum up how disparate and discombobulated the Grammys’ nomination process is, they gave me a layup with this one.

Tentative Top Tens for 2019

Movies

1. The Lighthouse: Nothing about this Robert Eggers movie is conventional, and I was both haunted and delighted by it.
2. Knives Out: No mainstream studio movie was better executed or more enjoyable than this whodunit from Rian Johnson.
3. High Life: Few science fiction films are bold enough to capture the coldness of space and the warmth of humanity the way Claire Denis’s first foray into the genre did earlier this year.
4. Once upon a Time… in Hollywood: One of the few movies I was able to see twice in theaters this year, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature and the performances from DiCaprio and Pitt have lingered with me.
5. The Irishman: Much has been made of the run-time (3.5 hours!) and director Martin Scorsese’s comments about Marvel, but the slow-burning Oscar frontrunner deserves consideration on its own merits as an instant-classic gangster movie.
6. Booksmart: Vulgar teen movies are an essential genre for coming-of-age stories, and Booksmart rides a whip-smart screenplay and tender direction from Olivia Wilde to a rip-roaring showcase for its two leads, Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever.
7. Avengers: Endgame: The second part of the blockbuster event of the decade (if not the century) didn’t disappoint on any level.
8. Us: While Jordan Peele’s second effort didn’t catch on in the zeitgeist in the same way as Get Out, it’s going to stand the test of time as both horror movie and social commentary, thanks largely to some indelible images and the transcendent talent of star Lupita Nyong’o.
9. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum: I think Chapter 2 might be the peak of the series thus far, but Parabellum is a non-stop thrill ride.
10. Spider-Man: Far from Home: Far from Home took a step forward from Homecoming in scale but didn’t suffer on the teen-comedy front, deftly navigating teen romance and its supervillain plot in hilarious ways.

Notable movies I have yet to see: 1917, Bombshell, The Farewell, Jojo Rabbit, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Little Women, Marriage Story, Pain and Glory, Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Transit, Uncut Gems

Albums

1. Lana Del Rey, Norman Fucking Rockwell!: I kind of hate that my top record is one that’s on so many end-of-year lists, but some albums are just undeniable, and Del Rey’s opus is one of them.
2. Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters: An unforgettable and emotional record of traditional folk music created by four artists of color to document African-American history.
3. Ariana Grande, thank u, next: Sweetener was already a huge step forward for Grande, and thank u, next feels like a natural progression as she grows in confidence.
4. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen: As much as it felt like a record about grief, Cave’s last record was mostly written and recorded before his son’s death, so Ghosteen feels like Cave’s complete, abstract statement about sorrow and loss.
5. Over the Rhine, Love & Revelation: This husband and wife duo from Ohio continue to overwhelm me with the maturity and complexity of the folk songs they release, this record being one of their most fully formed achievements yet.
6. Josh Garrels, Chrysaline: Garrels has released a lot of otherworldly music during his career, but Chrysaline, which works like a liturgy for life itself, feels like his best yet.
7. Bon Iver, i, i: Justin Vernon continues to bend my expectations for what music is supposed to sound like with his oft-copied mix of folk and electronica.
8. Beyoncé, Lion King: The Gift: This one is of a piece with Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther album as showcases by American artists for talented African artists and for black empowerment.
9. Taylor Swift, Lover: I liked reputation quite a bit, but Lover is a purer Swift and a more enjoyable one as a result.
10. The Tallest Man on Earth, I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream.: Kristian Matsson has consistently allowed his sound to mature from record to record, so I Love You takes his sometimes inscrutable folk style and lays it over with an earnestness that has a surprisingly emotional impact.

Notable albums I have yet to listen to: Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?; FKA twigs, Magdalene; Fontaines D.C., Dogrel; H.E.R., I Used to Know Her; Lil Nas X, 7 EP; Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains; Tyler, the Creator, Igor

Best Book I Read

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (2015): A lot of science fiction or fantasy epics seems to conform to certain expected tropes. One of the joys of Jemisin’s first novel in her Broken Earth trilogy is how the story unfolds in unexpected ways. Her characters are wonderful to read, but it’s the ingenious presentation of their history that makes The Fifth Season such a must-read.

Best Graphic Novel I Read

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (2016): This is the last piece of media I’m writing about, but by no means do I want that to minimize the effect this book had on me. Graphic novels have limitations compared to books of pure prose, but they also can communicate visually. In this case, Walden’s art helps her dialogue and plotting in building a spellbinding world set in space. The story, of people on the edges of society who find among each other their place and something to fight for, appeals to me as someone who bristles at outside expectations and conformity. The art, surreal and beautiful, floats the idea that there are other worlds than the one currently oppressing you with ordinariness. Some may find the abstraction a little hard to get past, but I found it intoxicating.