The 2019 end of the year music lists thread

#2 on the Bandcamp list should be "SAULT - 5 and 7"

Cool to see them up at the top!

I don't know how Bandcamp pulls together a list given (a) the scope of stuff they cover and (b) the breadth of material that's ostensibly eligible (because it's on Bandcamp)

Good on 'em, I guess is all I'm saying

Marbecks record store, New Zealand

Hama - Houmeissa
James Blake - Assume Form
Sharon van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow
Sourakata Koite - En Hollande
Nightmares on Wax - Back To Mine
Toro y Moi - Outer Peace
Jayda G - Significant Changes
Various Artists - Nigeria 70: No Wahala: Highlife, Afro-Funk & Juju 1973 -1987
Various Artists - Pay It All Back Vol. 7
Ekiti Sound - Abeg No Vex
Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
Bibio - Ribbons
Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan - Epistrophy
Fontaines DC - Dogrel
Aldous Harding - Designer
Jitwam. - Honeycomb
Brad Mehldau - Finding Gabriel
Cate Le Bon - Reward
Faye Webster - Atlanta Millionaires Club
Scott Manion - Loving Echoes
Various Artists - Mr Bongo Record Club Vol. 3
Anatolian Weapons (Feat. Seirios Savvaidis) - To The Mother Of Gods (LP)
Altın Gün - Gece
black midi - schlagenheim
Kit Sebastian - Mantra Moderne
Thom Yorke - ANIMA
The Flaming Lips - King's Mouth: Music & Songs
Carnivorous Plant Society - The People Below
Purple Pilgrims - Perfumed Earth
Solange - When I Get Home
Freddie Gibbs / Madlib - Bandana
Lana del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell
Tom Ludvigson & Trevor Reekie - Roto
Frankie Cosmos - Close It Quietly
L'Épée - Diabolique
Charli XCX - Charli
David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights - Bobbie's A Girl
Angel Olsen - All Mirrors
Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider - Sun on Sand
Big Thief - Two Hands
clipping. - There Existed An Addiction To Blood
Floating Points - Crush
Various Artists - Body Beat: Soca-Dub And Electronic Calypso (1979-98)
Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka
FKA twigs - Magdalene
Kamaal Williams - DJ Kicks
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿
David Byrne - American Utopia On Broadway (Original Cast Recording)
Burna Boy - African Giant

Cool to see the Bill Frisel/Thomas Morgan live album on here. I've been enjoying that one a lot.

cool as hell to see sampa the great at #1 on the bandcamp list

Bandcamp's list is the best I've seen (marred only by the fact some great albums aren't on Bandcamp and hence aren't listed). I count 30 albums from their 100 I've bought over the year and love.

Shindig! magazine

1. Drugdealer - Raw Honey
2. Lucille Furs - Another Land
3. GospelbeacH - Let It Burn
4. Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
5. Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka
6. PP Arnold - The New Adventures Of…
7. Thee Oh Sees - Face Stabber
8. Kit Sebastian - Mantra Moderne
9. Devendra Banhart - Ma
10. The Budos Band - V
11. Gruff Rhys - Pang!
12. Jessica Pratt - Quiet Signs
13. The Comet is Coming - Trust In the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
14. The Hare and Hoofe - The Terror of Meltron
15. Kacy & Clayton - Carrying On
16. Les Grys-Grys - s/t
17. Fabienne Delsol - Four
18. Isobel Campbell - There Is No Other
19. Foxygen - Seeing Other People
20. Ulysses - On Safari

Reissue of the year: KAK - s/t
Box Set of the year: Gene Clark - No Other
Compilation (single artist) of the year: Marvin Gaye - You're the Man
Compilation (various artists) of the year: Curt Boettcher & friends - Looking For The Sun

I linked to afropop.org alphabetical list earlier, but writing it out here with brief descriptions of some :

Angelique Kidjo- Celia (Benin singer's take on Celia Cruz)
Babani Kone- Djeliya (female Malian singer re-release)
Bantou Mentale- Bantou Mentale (Congo rockin)
Bassekou Kouyate - Miri (Mali legend & band)
Blick Bassy-1958 (melancholy Cameroon pop w/ historical rooted lyrics)
Burna Boy- African Giant
Davido- A Good Time
Dexter Story- Bahir (Los Angeles led Ethiopian/East African horns & percussion )
Dona Onete - Rebujo (Brazil)
El Wali - Tiris ( Sahrawi female desert vocals)
Emmanuel Jal and Nyaruach - Naath (Sudan rapper goes pop)
Garifuna Collective- Aban (sweet afro-roots pop)
The Good Ones, Rwanda, You Should Be Loved (afro-folk harmonies)
Gyedu-Blay Ambolley- 11 Street Sekondi (Ghana afro-funk)
Habib Koite - Kharifa (Mali singer/songwriter guitarist w/ grooves)
Hama - Houmeissa (Saharan techno)
Hope Masike - The Exorcism of A Spinster (Zimbabwe singer)
Houssa Gania - Mosawi Swiri (Gnawa fusion from Morocco)
Ile - Almadura (Puerto Rican singer/songwriter from Calle 13 w/ guests)
Juan Wauters - La Onda de Juan Pablo (NYC Latin folk)
Kongo Dia Ntotila - 360 Degrees (UK Congo pop & more)
La Yegros- Suelta (Argentina electro-cumbia)
Lakou Mizik- HaitiaNola (Haiti to New Orleans)
Lazarus- Stomp the Devil (Malawi singer)
Lee “Scratch” Perry, Rainford (reggae)
Les Filles de Illighadad - Eghass Malan (female led guitar & percussion band from Niger)
Los Wembler's de Iquitos- Vision Del Ayahuasca (veteran Peru chicha, cumbia, surf)
Luka Productions - Falaw (Mali electro-folk)
Maître Gims - Ceinture Noire (Transcendance) (France-Congo rap)
Mdou Moctar- Ilana, The Creator (afro-rockin from Niger)
Oumar Konate, I Love You Inna (Mali guitar)
Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band - Obiaa! (Ghanaian highlife)
Projecto Arcomusical- Spinning in the Wheel (minimalist compositions for the berimbau)
Rachid Taha - Je Suis Africain ( late bad boy of Algerian pop)
Rocky Dawuni - Beats of Zion (Ghanaian reggae star)
Salif Keita - Un Autre Blanc (Mali’s golden voice)
Santana w/ Buika - Africa Speaks (Afro-Spanish vocals over guitar solos)
Sessa - Grandeza (Brazil)
Sinkane - Dépaysé (Sudanese-American singer/songwriter)
Steel Pulse - Mass Manipulation (UK reggae band's 1st album in 15 years)
Wuta Mayi - La Face Cachée (Congolese singer who used to be w/ Franco)
Y La Bamba, Mujeres and Entre Los Dos (Latinx-American )
Youssou N'Dour- History (Senegalese singing great)

https://afropop.org/articles/afropop-runs-down-2019

Compilation (various artists) of the year: Curt Boettcher & friends - Looking For The Sun

this sounds very interesting

lol curmudgeon, what’s with the shade at Burna Boy and Davido?

prob just presuming everyone here knows their deal!

more than Santana or Youssou N’Dour? I wouldn’t count on it!

to be fair those guys do work in a variety of styles

Just assumed everyone knows Burna Boy and Davido.

Burna Boy perhaps, Davido less so, I’d think.

Accidentally posed this q in the decade lists thread

I guess this is the best place to ask, so when does our EOY poll nomination thread go up?

― Johnny Fever, Monday, December 16, 2019 10:04 PM bookmarkflaglink

we're talking about it.

cool cool cool

https://bittersoutherner.com/best-southern-albums-of-2019

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/music/2019/12/17/best-albums-2019-billie-eilish-and-lana-del-rey-make-top-10-list/4411975002/

oh, Billie Eilish and Lana del Rey? you don't say!

eat what you're given

Vinyl Factory - Our 50 favourite albums of 2019
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/our-favourite-albums-of-2019/

^ always some good stuff on this list imo

Great list. First one I've seen with some of the many great Japanese releases of this year. Meitei Komachi, Midori Hirano and Tujiko Noriko albums are all great. The Seito compilation is well worth checking out, too.

Heavy Blog's metal top 50:

https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2019/12/17/heavy-blogs-top-50-albums-of-2019/

Well, not just metal. lj will undoubtedly approve.

Another great list, thanks for sharing Pom! I unashamedly love We Lost the Sea's 'Triumph and Disaster' listed there. Closest to echoing post-rocks glorious second wave of yore.

Thank you @HeavyBlog for ranking us at #7 for the year! :D

Also props for including that incredible @clppng album at #2 - You guys clearly broaden your perspective of what "heavy" music is beyond metal, and that album is the perfect example!https://t.co/9zv0grvsP5

— Wilderun (@Wilderunband) December 17, 2019

all things are one :)

I guess it's a safe bet that I won't get to vote in SPIN's year end round up this year then

https://www.spin.com/featured/best-albums-2019/

Wilderun/Clipping collab when

LDR
FKA Twigs
Angel Olsen
Big Thief
Purple Mountains

this year's GAPDY?

can I buy a vowel

Eilish

BELFAP

PALFEB

the Vinyl Factory list increased my backlog of things I need to listen to significantly.

BELFAP ftw imo, tho i'm not into any of those albums

I really wish I understood what people get out of Lana Del Rey's music

the phrase i heard was "Joan Baez for the Facebook era" if that helps at all. it does not help me at all.

lol that doesn't seem right at all. did they mean joni mitchell?

(LDR is fine to my ears, but I'm confused as to why everyone is so excited about it)

lol, i meant to type joni mitchell and it came out joan baez; my bad there

there's a really hacky david-lynch-noir-lite thing going on, add that to the superconfident self-branding of a rich kid with an increasingly global fanbase and you have yourself a sellable product. it signifies talking about america and existential despair in shedloads without doing any substantial talking imo - she's not what you'd call deep. occasionally writes a decent melody but nothing special. it has always been about the vibe with her, the cool and affected signification of noir, and in late-stage neoliberalism, superficial displays of limitless relevance are seized upon and propagated. comparisons to joni mitchell are not unwarranted in some ways except mitchell existed at the intersection of surface and depth and her art was not branded product but a nuanced, extremely personal response to the uncertainties of her age, therefore making her a great deal more interesting as a songwriter, a thinker and a person

sir, this is a dairy queen

EOY nominations r open: ILM's 2019 End of Year Tracks & Albums Poll / NOMINATIONS THREAD

lol xp

& to be clear, I don't actually hate NFR! - I gave it 5/10 and it could have been 6 - but the ldr phenomenon is a different story, and the music press is where i'm mostly pointing the finger

i like NFR well enough but that's fairly accurate imago, though i like her melodies much more than you. she's not a particularly interesting lyricist and i don't get the praise over that, but the rest of NFR is enough to carry it for me despite that weakness

Why I like LDR:

• The melodies and arrangements, and the production in general; her music sounds lush and extremely well put together by people who know what the fuck they're doing in a big-money studio
• One or two really great lines per album, and the way she strings banal and/or clichéd images together in order to create something more than the sum of the parts; she's a trope-collagist

Rachid Taha - Je Suis Africain ( late bad boy of Algerian pop) Yas indeed---"Just call me Rai Cooder." he quipped long ago, doing Western rock a reverse-Coody missionary favor while teaming w Steve Hillage and Galactic on Made In Medina, one of my all-time faves (Songlines reviewer Nigel Williamson said this was what Page & Plant were *trying* to do w some of Taha's neighbors on Unledded---and then some, I say). The new one is a rich shady grove-trove, just a bit bittersweet, nad made my Uproxx ballot, as might others from curm's list if I'd gotten out more (lots of great lists here). Most of my rest was recent jazz, thanks to Rolling Jazz.