Note: I have not listened to everything, there are probably even more albums NOT on here that are really great too. Feel free to berate me as needed.
There's too many ridiculously good albums to put them all in order, so here's a random collection, followed by the top arbitrary countdown.
But first, the unsorted list of random cool musicians you should totally check out:
American Football (LP3)
Emo
Listen
Amyl and the Sniffers
Punk
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Assume Form
Contemporary R&B
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Punk
J-Pop
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No Geography
Electro
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Midnight
Indie Rock
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Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
Jazz
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new breed
R&B
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In Search of the Miraculous
Shoegaze
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Strange Creatures
Grunge
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When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Dark-Pop
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It's Real
Rock
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Dogrel
Post-Punk
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thank u, next
Pop
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Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear
EBM
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PROTO
Experimental
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Good at Falling
Synth-Pop
Listen
American Love Call
Neo-Soul
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Fishing for Fishies
Psychedelic Rock
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Ladytron
Synth-Pop
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On the Line
Pop/Rock
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Cuz I Love You
Hip Hop/Pop
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Blood
Experimental
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***NOTE: Lu's version of 10CC's "I'm Not In Love" is the Cover of the Year
Malibu Ken
Experimental Hip Hop
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I Am Easy to Find
Indie Rock
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Lux Prima
Trip Hop
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Ventrua
Hip Hop
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Boat
Indie Rock
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Tasmania
Psychedelic Rock
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Quiet Signs
Folk
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The Seduction of Kansas
Post-Punk
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Dog Whistle
Hardcore
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When I Get Home
R&B
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We Get By
Soul
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Life Metal
Drone
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Wraith
Post Rock
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Diviner
Chamber Pop
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It Won/t Be Like This All the Time
Post-Punk
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Father of the Bride
Indie Rock
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Legacy! Legacy!
Funk/Soul
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Final Transmission
Post Rock
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Is it a terrible curse, or a blessing, that tragedy brings about the greatest art? Like Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Skeleton Tree, Final Transmission is Cave In's response to the sudden death of their bassist and co-vocalist Caleb Scofield. While the eulogy is technically an unplanned one--most of the songs were recorded as demos while Caleb was still with them--the gut-punch of his tragic loss can be felt in every single note. Like Joy Division's Closer or Mother Love Bone's Apple, the album takes on more prescience when you realize that the man recording it wouldn't see its release. But for the remaining members of Cave In, if this is indeed their final transmission, the album is just that: a release.
ZUU
Trap
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To say there was a lot of hype surrounding Curry's newest album is the understatement of the year. 2018's TA13OO was the best hip hop record of last year, not just the best trap record. And the singles leading into the release of ZUU, "Ricky" and "Speedboat", were so fantastic that when the album was finally released, the disappointment at its length was palpable. Running under 30 minutes and including two skits, ZUU is not what most people were expecting. But don't let the brevity fool you, Denzel Curry packs every second to the brim. ZUU may not be nearly as dark as TA13OO, but the beats hit just as hard. "Ricky" showcases Curry at his productive best, warping samples and vocals alike to fit a twisted square peg into a distorted ellipsoid hole. Rick Ross' feature on "Birdz" is some of the best work he's offered up in years, and the sheer volume and anger on closer "P.A.T." provided by Curry and PlayThatBoyZay is enough to destroy even the most veteran of eardrums.
Girl With Basket of Fruit
Abstract/Noise
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Normally I would try to shoehorn a King In Yellow or Call of Cthulhu reference in when something is this...disturbing. But not only have I played that out in previous reviews (usually for Swans), but it's also not nearly close enough to the horror broached within the sonic confines of Xiu Xiu's horrible grotesquerie. To quote Fantano, "what a horrible way to treat sound." Girl With Basket of Fruit is such an insanely twisted statement, with Xiu Xiu doing their best to immediately and permanently ward off the faint of heart. Teaser single "Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy" was the most demented song I had ever heard, with its dusty sound, jerky samples, and weird weird weird weird weird...until the album came out and I seriously considered Sheppard Pratt. "It Comes Out as a Joke" includes the most mind-shredding lyrics of all-time: "A pig wearing a maid's apron and cap / Riding a tomato on rubber wheels / It looks at its pocket watch and points a hoof / 'You! Go to the World of the Unborn!'" I...I have nothing for that. At one point, in "Amargi ve Moo," Jamie Stewart descends into literal babbling: "blblblblblblbllblblblblbllblblblblblbllb." There's no words or pictures I can use to describe the experience. Like the Matrix, you cannot be told what Girl With Basket of Fruit is. Listen and you'll be one of us...one of us...one of us...
Doko Mien
Highlife
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The very first sound you hear when playing Doko Mien are those of only the brightest of neon time machines beginning its start functions. Not surprisingly, a neon time machine sounds like Giorgio Moroder's Midnight Express score: driving, reverb-soaked synth patterns and a four-on-the-floor electro drumbeat that could only be the backing of a Donna Summer disco classic. Ibibio Sound Machine have spent years crafting their exacting sound, and it's not one that can be mistaken for any other band right now. To the hypnotic swirl of electronics they add live jazz percussion, Motown guitars and horns, and the endlessly, effortlessly enamoring vocal presence of Eno Williams, who delivers her dance floor instructions in two languages so well that a translation becomes wholly unnecessary. With each new twist, you can hear ISM having...just the most fun. The title track, "Tell Me (Doko Mien)" is The. Banger. Of. The. Year. Coming straight off a Lipps, Inc. track, the perfect cowbell, the laser delivery of the beat, it is easily the most enjoyable song to pull from these influences since "Blind." I demand you listen to this right now, and dance the night away.
GREY Area
Conscious Hip Hop
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Wunderkind: n. one who succeeds in a competitive or highly difficult field or profession at an early age.
If you didn't know, GREY Area is Little Simz' third album, not to mention her four mixtapes and seven EPs, most of which came out before she was 21. So...what are you doing with your life? All of them are beyond the comprehension of your average 21 year old: thematically deep, and sampling from a library that rivals the one at Alexandria. GREY Area doesn't look to slow that pace down, either. While it may be her first truly visible release, it's just one in a long line of compelling, heady, sonic stunners leading to the very spot where she stands now. Simz demands you sit up and pay attention as looping beats perfectly match her rapping "I'm Jay-Z on a bad day / Shakespeare on my worst days." With the backing of names like Kendrick Lamar and Lauryn Hill, you would think talent this fathomless would have been blown-up all over the States by now. Sadly, her well-deserved fame is still waiting, seemingly doomed to the obscurity of many a UK grime artist. But when you're Shakespeare on your worst days, you have a lot to look forward to.
Gold & Grey
Sludge Metal
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The path Baroness has taken to become the preeminent lords of sludge that they are after Gold & Grey was ridiculously circuitous, to say the least. After releasing Blue Record in 2009 (happy 10th anniversary!), an album so punishing and gloriously awesome that it changed the shape of the sludge scene forever. We didn't just have to be depressed and rock out as slooowly as possible; now sludge could be about westerns, and Norse mythology, and generator parties in the woods. It also cemented Baroness as more than just a Mastodon clone, willing to inject their own southern rock and stoner metal tweaks into a tried-and-true--if a little overdone--method. But they weren't done reinventing themselves. Yellow & Green saw the band take on even more hats from other genres: prog metal, math rock, bluegrass, whatever Fleet Foxes is. It made for an interesting-but-bloated listen. The desire to make double albums is strong in the rock community when you have the Gods of The Wall, Physical Graffiti, and Quadrophenia to gaze upon. The subsequent tour resulted in a massive bus accident that nearly killed every member of the band, and led to several of them leaving. The trauma led to the writing and production of Purple, which...I can't honestly say much about. I listened to it when it came out, didn't care for it. Listened to it again about a year ago, same result. But this...Gold & Grey. If this is the culmination of a career, Baroness may have one of the greatest arcs in metal history. The songs are heavier, but never lose sense of the sing-along quality that made their biggest hits so fantastic. Sure, it's not Blue Record, but nothing ever will be. This is an entirely new breed. As a band, you know you've done right by your fans when you release a full hour of music and everyone still wants more.
U.F.O.F.
Folk Rock
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There aren't enough thesauruses to provide the synonyms required to describe the beauty of this album. A picture is worth a thousand words, but can a song be worth a thousand tears? A thousand sighs of fulfillment? A thousand burdens made lighter? There are moments listening to UFOF where you can be totally transported out of yourself, like a cartoon ghost. The delicacy of Big Thief's mission is so abjectly important that every guitar string gets it's own channel, every vocal recorded in a room lined with plush down. The comforting quality of every sound on UFOF is so persuasive and inviting that you'll be completely limp by the end of its brief 43-minute journey, numb and tingling to move again. This album will melt you. The acoustics are so sumptuous you could suffocate in them like the mid-Atlantic summer air. Every song sounds like Big Thief is sitting around you, with their instruments pressed to your ears, trying as best they can to make the world's first ASMR-folk album. There are some strange moments as well: opener "Contact" ends with literal screams, "From" samples glass being dragged across the ground, and closer "Magic Dealer" finishes the album with static loops too harsh for Prurient. The combined effect is just so warm and inviting, yet incredibly intriguing, you won't be able to stop yourself from listening over and over.
Titanic Rising
Indie Pop
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I find it funny, and slightly annoying, that Weyes Blood has been stamped with the label of "indie" when, if you go back about 50 years, this is what pop sounded like. Late 60s and early 70s pop radio was filled with Carol Kings, Carly Simons, James Taylors, Paul Simons, Janis Ians, and Billy Prestons. And while the 80s' synths, 90s' drum-and-bass, and 00s' bling may have changed how we view pop forever, the musicality of the old ways will never die. That musicality is what Weyes Blood understands better than anyone, helping her to deliver one of the most listenable acoustic pop albums ever. Titanic Rising is like a thesis statement for an art history PhD candidate. While this hasn't always been the M.O. of Natalie Mering, having played bass for the experimental post-rock Jackie-O Motherfucker to kick-off her career, she has seemingly come to accept the genre that best fits her solid, alto, Karen-Carpenter-esque voice. And before we get too far, let's talk "Andromeda." I have never heard a song about slowly, procedurally falling in love, much less one that is this complex and beautiful. Listening to Titanic Rising, you get the uncanny feeling that if Mering had just been born a generation earlier, she would have conquered the charts and raked in millions. Her lyrics are heartfelt and powerful, and her arrangements are new and compelling...if you just forget the last 40 years happened.
Igor
Hip Hop/Contemporary R&B
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If you can honestly say that you didn't listen to "I Think" at least three times in a row after hearing it, you are either a very good liar, in total denial, or you didn't hear it. Every song on Tyler, The Creator's fifth full-length solo album is its own statement of purpose: sometimes a musical theme, sometimes a political message, but always goal-oriented. It feels kind of silly writing about Igor like you didn't hear it. It was #1 on the Billboard 200, much to the hilarious chagrin of a fat, trashy, talentless moron whose only claim to fame is yelling his own moniker on other people's songs like the world's longest, saddest, most expensive game of Marco Polo, who shall remain nameless. But unlike that hack's bullshit career, Igor is a showcase of every influence Tyler, The Creator ever encountered, turned up to 11: Motor City R&B, 80s synth-pop, old school hip hop, Italo-disco; they're all here. This is the most successfully experimental contemporary album I've heard since James Blake's debut. The constant vinyl hiss, the extreme mash-up of styles, the harsh mixing, you can just feel that this is the album Tyler has been trying to make his entire life. The exacting perfection of each new twist: "I Think"'s roller rink pop, to spoken word on "Exactly What You Run From...," to the crooning of "Running Out of Time," to a straight-up banger in "New Magic Wand." This is the kind of album that keeps hip hop fresh, proving to Asahd fathers everywhere that, yes, this is music, and it is more important than yours.
Remind Me Tomorrow
Indie Rock
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In order to understand the impact that this album has, you have to understand my experience with Sharon van Etten's last album, 2014's utterly stunning Are We There. When that album came out, I avoided listening to it at first because it was labeled as "folk" which was not something I was keen on in 2014. But eventually the lack of a question mark in the title and its gripping black-and-white album art drew me in and...it changed my life. Maybe only from a musical perspective, but when you spend a lot of your free time talking about, listening to, and writing critiques of music, that's a big deal. Are We There was the first time I thought everything I knew about music was wrong. And five years is WAY too long for you to be away, Sharon.
How then, can I even begin to describe how Remind Me Tomorrow makes me feel? It's like, listening to your best friend's album, after no one but you believed in them, and it's amazing and you just can't wait to tell him how awesome it is and rub it in everyone's faces. I'm actively proud of Sharon van Etten for making this album, and I have no connection to her in any way, personal or professional. Remind Me Tomorrow is sweet and kind, but also has moments of hard rock so massive it can fill an arena. Single "Comeback Kid" belongs in the annals of women's rock history with other epics like "Bad Reputation," "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," and "Barracuda." And album closer "Stay," van Etten's tribute to her newborn, is so beautiful and delicate it will leave you breathless. In between there are manifestos on the difficulty of love ("No One's Easy to Love"), a warning to not waste your youth ("Seventeen"), and a clapback at copycats so hardcore you'll have an hand print on your face ("You Shadow"). Remind Me Tomorrow is as great a collection of short stories as anything in print, and an unforgettable listening experience. Sharon, never leave us.
