#32 - Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

XL, 2013

Considering that Vampire Weekend’s sophomore LP Contra was well received, it’s wrong to call Modern Vampires of the City a redemption story. However, considering how much I disliked Contra, that’s what it felt like to me. Vampire Weekend emerged from a pile of polo shirts in the northeast when I was in my PEAK MUSIC CONNOISSEUR phase circa 2007. I remember soaking up the early CD-R rip and not know what to make of it. Since then Vampire Weekend has been one of those bands I forget about until I put one of their albums on and realize how good they are. Why I didn’t like Contra when it came out is still a mystery (though I still haven’t listened to it since then), and why I loved Modern Vampires of the City is also a mystery. It’s just one of those albums where I look at the tracklist and go, “Yep, yep, oh that one is great, oh that one is outstanding…” I think a lot of that comes from how controlled this record sounds. That kind of “everything just so” quality can make for a fussy record that isn’t a lot of fun to listen to, but there are so many interesting quirks in the synth programming and the brilliant melodies that this one always ends up feeling timeless every time I run through it. We’ll see how it stands up a decade from now, it could very well sound the way 80s music sounds today, but you never know. Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out this album’s sequencing, which does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to making this one such a treat to listen to. There’s such a diverse array of sounds on this album that you didn’t get from their Graceland indebted debut. It’s an album that feels like a band actively pivoting into a fuller and more mature sound, and that is exhilarating to me.

#33 - Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You 

Anti, 2013

Album title of the decade. One of those titles I heard and knew that if the album didn’t live up to the title, it would hurt. Fortunately, I didn’t have anything to worry about because when has Neko Case ever released anything less than great? 2018’s Hell-On is more adventurous, and maybe the superior record, but this is the album I spent the most time with. Not that this album is somehow safe or doesn’t take risks (just take a look at the A Capella “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” in which Case puts an abusive mom at the Honolulu airport on blast and apologizes to the poor kid getting yelled at). She still belts the hell out of every song, and I think I’m defensive about this one because the usually reliable AV Club  panned this album and I just didn’t understand how they could whiff so bad. How do you listen to a song like “City Swans” and go, “Eh”? Immaterial. This record is excellent and relistening to it now I feel like it’s better than I remember.

#34 - Serengeti - Family & Friends

Serengeti - Family & Friends 

Anticon, 2011

While the continuing saga of Kenny Dennis--Chicago rapper David Cohn’s mustachioed, bratwurst, Chicago sports, and Brian Dennehy loving alter-ego--was a fantastic treat in the 2010s, it only represents one side of Serengeti’s exhaustive output this decade. At the top is 2011’s Family & Friends, which highlights Cohn’s significant talents as a rapper and storyteller and pairs them with fantastic production from Why?’s Yoni Wolf and Advance Base’s Owen Ashworth (which is probably why this one so cleanly broke through my indie rock barricades). Though Wolf and Ashworth each handle about half the album each, Family & Friends feels like a three-way collaboration. Three great artists in their own right, putting it all together and creating something spectacular. The high point for me is the Advance Base produced gem “The Whip,” which chronicles a MMA fighter who never quite made it, lives in the southwest with his stepmom, and fantasizes about returning to the Octagon and what his life would be like had he avoided getting knocked out at UFC 3. That one gets me every time, and it’s a highlight on an album that is infinitely listenable.

#35 - Martha - Blisters in the Pit of My Heart

35. Martha - Blisters in the Pit of My Heart

Dirtnap, 2016

That the English group Martha has their roots in a village called Pity Me sounds like fake lore that bands make up to give themselves an air of mystery (see: Arcade Fire). But no! Sometimes things just work out perfectly. You know works out perfectly? Martha’s sophomore LP Blisters in the Pit of My Heart. The 2010s was finding music that appeased both my punk rock heard and my indie rock brain. It’s why you get Los Campesinos!, Hop Along, Joyce Manor, and fiercely contending for spots on my favorite albums and favorite songs of the decade lists. Martha is firmly in that indie-punk-rock mold with a lot of bedroom power-pop thrown in for good measure. 

I feel like every year this decade had one album that was just like, solid as a rock (though it was an honorable mention, Muncie Girls’ 2018 LP Fixed Ideals is one of those albums) where every song is great and you wouldn’t dare skip to your favorite track (because they’re all your favorite track). Standouts here include “Goldman’s Detective Agency,” “Do Whatever,” “The Awkward Ones,” and the phenomenal single “Curly & Raquel” (which will make an appearance relatively high up on my favorite songs of the decade list). The melodies are out of control. The guitar solos are janky as hell and it feels like every song has one. Blisters in the Pit of My Heart is bursting with joy, and for someone who listens to a lot of sad bastard music that is more than welcome.

#36 - Father John Misty - Fear Fun

Father John Misty - Fear Fun 
Sub-Pop, 2012

Summer 2012. Jenny and I have just moved to Minneapolis and I’m working at the Half Price Books in the suburb of St. Louis Park. I’m in charge of pricing the CDs in the store’s basement, and considering that this was one of the chain’s Top 5 stores in regard to buying used books, DVDs, and CDs, there were a lot. My buddy David--who took over the post when I transferred over to the store in St. Paul--wrote an excellent essay about his attempt to collect 100 copies of 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged live album because we saw so many copies of that damn album that he could have built a little clubhouse in that basement (check out David’s book One Million Maniacs). So, the scene is set. I’m sitting there working through hundreds of CDs a day. It’s the best job I ever had. It was an absolutely zen experience sitting down there, playing whatever CD looked interesting on the stereo we had for “testing” the discs to make sure they worked. I see the cover of Father John Misty’s debut and think: what the hell is this? I see that it’s on Sub-Pop which gives me the green light to pop it in the stereo. And then I listen to the album at least once a day for the next two months. Tillman’s voice hypnotized me. The bizarro, swaggering story of this guy out of his element in Los Angeles was captivating in every way. It’s out there, under the influence of psychedelics, and sure I Love You Honeybear and God’s Favorite Customer are more refined distillations of Father John Misty, but the rawness of this one, of this dude who had pigeonholed himself as this indie folk singer breaking off the shackles and getting weird, is pure magic. I feel like I should be irritated by Josh Tillman, but his albums keep ending up on my year end lists and I know better than to question this kind of stuff. “Only Son of a Ladiesman” is one of the absolute killers of the 2010s and if that song doesn’t do it for you I don’t know what to tell you.

#37 - Bon Iver- Bon Iver

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Jagjaguar, 2011

“What’s Justin Vernon going to do once he leaves the cabin?” I wondered. I was an early adopter of For Emma, Forever Ago and that album hit me at just the right time (read: amidst a year of pure heartbreak). I wasn’t shocked when its eponymous follow-up hit me at just the right time (read: falling in love with my soulmate) yet again. “Blood Bank” led me to believe that Vernon’s songwriting might become more direct, but no, he went the Loveless route of essentially using words as another instrument. I still love this album, but not as much as I did in 2011 when Jenny and I would just lay in my bed and listen to it all the way through. There’s nothing more romantic than a big, ethereal track like “Holocene.” Or the 80s synths and the emotional intensity of the epic closer “Beth, Rest.” Moreover, even though the lyrics are frequently nonsensical, designed more as evocative wordscapes than meant to tell you something, the melodies are outstanding all the way through. Vernon only got more out there as the decade wore on, and while 22, A Million and i, i are both great records, I don’t think either of them can touch this one. Part of that is by virtue of this one having such a strong nostalgic and emotional pull, but it is what it is.

#38 - The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ

The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ (2015) (Merge) 

This topped my list of favorite albums of 2015, but that year was, to quote the musical Spring Awakening, totally fucked. I spent January through December in full on death anxiety mode as I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, went through two radioactive iodine treatments each with a week spent in isolation, and a gnarly neck dissection where I spent almost a week in the hospital, three weeks recovering at home, and all I got was a lousy scar that looks like a drug lord tried to assassinate me and left me for dead but I survived, dammit. Beat the Champ and The Tallest Man on Earth’s Dark Bird is Home (more on that one later) were my companions through the periods of isolation, and Beat the Champ in particular was a wonderful distraction. In fact, it’s the reason I started watching pro wrestling again. I was a huge WWF fan in the late 90s when wrestling was resurgent, but I lost interest once the Monday Night Wars ended when WWF bought WCW. From the isolation chamber (read: my old bedroom in my parents basement) I checked out the WWE Network and the rest is history. My fandom was renewed. Thanks, John Darnielle.

Despite being a Mountain Goats diehard, this is weirdly the only one of their five 2010s albums to make the list. I’m not sure why that is. All Eternals Deck contended, and while I love all of their records, it might be that I have such a strong connection to the records from the 00s (Tallahassee and The Sunset Tree in particular, both of which are likely Top 10 of the century for me)that these are just like a fun bonus. Beat the Champ has a special place due to it being my partner in trauma, but I think Darnielle did a great job covering all of these different perspectives and fascinating elements of the wrestling world while also making an album that felt as personal as everything else he does. “Heel Turn 2” in particular is one of the absolute songs of the decade, and I have a real affinity for the jaunty “Foreign Object” where Darnielle gleefully sings, “I’m gonna stab you in the eye with a foreign object.” He canonizes legends like Chavo Guerrero Sr and Bull Ramos with these sweet tales of men living through countless battles to enjoy their old age, and pens one of the most deeply moving tracks in his catalog in “Unmasked,” about a masked wrestler booked to lose a mask vs. mask match and set to reveal his face to the world. Darnielle showed that there was grace in something as barbaric and impolite as professional wrestling, and that’s just what he does. He shines his light on the dark corners of the world and shows you that there is worth in these hidden places. That’s his great gift as a storyteller (his two novels--2014’s Wolf in White Van and 2017’s Universal Harvester--are as good as you think they would be) and even though his records don’t quite takeover my mind, body, and spirit like they used to, it still gives me tremendous comfort that he’s out there working his magic.

#39 - Advance Base - Animal Companionship

Advance Base - Animal Companionship

Run For Cover, 2018

The memory of my buddy Jon playing turning me onto Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in high school is a strong one. Or I think it is. Or he told me about the band. And I remember hearing “To My Mr. Smith”--the leadoff track from 2003’s Twinkle Echo–in all of its wonky, blown out glory. I certainly hadn’t heard anything like that up to that point in my nascent post-punk rock loyalist appreciation of indie rock, and it established my deep appreciation for Owen Ashworth’s music. On Twinkle Echo’s 2006 follow-up, Etiquette, the poor, lo-fi quality of previous Casiotone releases (which certainly had its charms) is replaced with a cleaner studio sound, and the songs were the best Ashworth had written up until that point. It was a perfect refinement, and a big reason why Etiquette is one of my favorite albums of the 2000s.

After absorbing Etiquette and its follow-up--2009’s Vs. Children--coinciding with Ashworth renaming his project Advance Base, I lost touch. I’m not sure why that happened, and while I vaguely remember 2012’s A Shut-in’s Prayer, I was aghast to realize Ashworth had released two more Advance Base records before dropping 2019’s sublime Animal Companionship. Better late than never I suppose, and man oh man is this a great record. Ashworth has clearly been honing his songwriting in the intervening years, and the results are an album full of brilliant and touching lo-fi pop. The first two tracks in particular–“True Love Death Dream” and “Dolores & Kimberly”--are like a one-two punch of poignancy and a personal reminder for me to never sleep on Advance Base.

#40 - Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

High Top Mountain, 2014

Putting this one on for the first time in a couple years, I still have the same immediate reaction: “Goddamn, that sumbitch can SING.” Sturgill Simpson does his best to channel the ghosts of the outlaw country legends and does a hell of a job. It’s a country record for the people who listen to “everything but country.” Or maybe not. That’s a stupid answer to “what kind of music do you like” anway so I can’t expect those plebes would appreciate Simpson’s gifts. In addition to his commanding voice, he’s a hell of a songwriter. Opener “Turtles All the Way Down” is country music by way of an LSD trip and it’s a fascinating contrast. His cover of When in Rome’s 80s pop hit “The Promise” transforms the track into a melancholy torch song, and when it hits that crescendo, man just look out. If you’re not a true believer at that point I don’t know what to tell you. This is one of those albums that ticks all of the boxes. The songs are great, the lyrics are introspective, the musicians are locked in, and there’s not a dud to be found. This definitely still holds up five years later and I think we have an enduring classic on our hands.

#41 - Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell 

Asthmatic Kitty, 2015

Remember when we used to wonder what state Sufjan Stevens would make an album about next? I definitely wondered, but I also did the math and figured it would be unlikely for someone to spend their entire career making albums about states. Fortunately, that was all a big joke and Sufjan Stevens has spent the intervening years since 2005’s Illinois releasing the skritchy experimental pop record The Age of Adz (2010) and the sparse, breathtakingly gorgeous tribute to his mother and stepfather Carrie & Lowell. The album is one of the most hushed and gorgeous records you will ever hear, and yet it’s not an album you need to prepare yourself for like, say, Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me (an honorable mention, only missing the list because I only listened to it once, wept deeply, and never wanted to listen to it again even though it is a profound work of art). You can spend time with this one without it ruining your day, and despite how quiet it is, there are serene moments of joy and comfort. It’s an album of fractured nostalgia, tarnished by reality and the passage of time and life’s inevitability. I saw Stevens perform at the Bottleneck when he was touring Illinois, and I thought that show felt a little hollow. He seemed burnt out, and the songs didn’t carry the gravity that they did when I listened to them at home. Carrie & Lowell feels like Sufjan Stevens re-centering himself by recording his sparsest album to date and yet also his most affecting. It’s nice to see that sound has carried over into his recent singles (“Tonya Harding” and the Oscar nominated song from Call Me By Your Name “Mystery of Love). It’s not that I’m a Luddite, and that I think he should throw his synthesizer and computer into the trash, I just feel like he communicates so well in this form that I don’t ever want him to stop.

#42 - Neko Case - Hell-On

Neko Case - Hell-On

Anti, 2018

Hell-On missed the initial draft of this list. But looking back at My Favorite Records of 2018, I remembered I had it all the way up at #3, which led to a re-visitation, which led to it bumping Jens Lekman’s I Know What Love Isn’t (still an honorable mention) and leapfrogging five or so other records on this list. Thus is the power of Neko Case, and if this were a proper Best Of this is probably a Top 10 no doubter. Every Neko Case album is an event, and she is one of the rare artists who has not only never made a misstep, but consistently ups her game each time out. Though my heart still belongs to Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (which is why this one isn’t higher on the list), listening to this one again immediately had me sitting slack-jawed at Case’s talent. I’m immediately drawn to the more pop-oriented tunes here. Even though Neko Case’s version of an upbeat pop song is still melancholy, “Bad Luck,” “Last Lion of Albion,” and “Gumball Blue” have fantastic hooks. Which is to say nothing of Case’s songwriting, which is the shining star here. “Curse of the I-5 Corridor” is a seven-minute masterclass in the songcraft. It’s an origin story, but unlike those origin story movies that spend so much time setting up the story, Case meditations on her emergence from the Pacific Northwest with emotional gut punch after emotional gut punch. “In the current of your life/ I was an eyelash in the shipping lanes;” “I miss the smell of mystery/ Reverb leaking out of tavern doors/ And not knowing how the sounds were made;” “The crash it comes/ And pours down my public face/ Behind a reservoir of collarbones/ And forms two private lakes.” Quoting song lyrics in a review hardly ever captures the gravity the words carry in the song, but that’s why Case is a master. She’s Leonard Cohen good. Someone who painstakingly finds just the right phrasing and just keeps getting better.

#43 - Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy

Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy

Mello Music Group, 2014

During my radio days I tried very hard to add hip-hop to my regular music diet, but in the end I only felt like a poser. I should preface that by saying the very first piece of physical music media I asked my mom to buy me was the Tag Team “Whoomp! (There it Is)” cassingle from Wal-Mart when I was, what? 8 years old? I had an NWA phase in high school and I was into that less for the gangster attitude than the refreshing storytelling. I gave Kendrick Lamar a shot and really loved Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City and To Pimp a Butterfly is undeniable, but it took a long time to admit that my actual taste is much more safe than I want it to be. I made my peace with that, and it’s a big reason why I can’t call this a Best Of. Because if you’re making a Best Of To Pimp a Butterfly has to be in your Top 5 for its cultural relevance, technical prowess, and brilliant songwriting. This is a long way of me trying to convince you that I get it, it’s just that the rap I listen to on a regular basis is very specific. Open Mike Eagle’s Dark Comedy took my breath away. He’s funny, he has a point of view, and relistening to this now it fills me with so much joy. Eagle’s collaboration with stand-up comic Hannibal Burress–”Doug Stamper (Advice Raps)”--is still one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard. Every line kills. Eagle’s 2017 album Brick Body Kids Still Daydream is probably the better record (and a great one, duh), but this one is always gonna be my favorite.

#44 - Hop Along - Painted Shut

45. Hop Along - Painted Shut

Saddle Creek, 2015

The music of the 2010s is divided into two periods: the time before I heard Frances Quinlan sing and the time after. Hop Along’s breakout 2015 album Painted Shut was a paradigm shift. The decade featured dozens and dozens of young female voices busting out and altering the indie rock landscape, but Quinlan’s voice is a singular experience. Though the group’s 2018 release Bark Your Head Off, Dog is pretty much just as excellent in every way as Painted Shut, this one has the benefit of being the one that broke my brain. Maybe it’s like when people heard Janis Joplin sing for the first time. Quinlan’s vocals sound broken. Like they shouldn’t work. And yet the range she gets with her husky rasp and the versatility she displays is unlike anyone else in the game. While “Powerful Man” is the standout and the right introduction to the band’s particular brand of off-the-beaten-path indie rock, it’s the crescendo on “Horseshoe Crabs” that will make you a true believer.

#45 - Fred Thomas - All Are Saved

Fred Thomas - All Are Saved

Polyvinyl, 2015

I don’t remember how I came to All Are Saved, but I know I had thoroughly absorbed the album by the time I found out Fred Thomas was the bandleader for the excellent indie pop band Saturday Looks Good to Me. I spent a fair amount of time with their album All Your Summer Songs in my KJHK days, and it’s shocking that this is the same Fred Thomas. Thomas’ solo stuff eschews bouncy, throwback soul pop for an angular, lyrically dense sound. This record instantly grabbed me and I couldn’t figure out why. It’s a little outside of my usual wheelhouse, but I think it all comes down to Thomas’ songwriting. While there are a couple of poppy numbers here (“Cops Don’t Care Pt. II” with it’s excellent sing-a-long final chorus/outro), the squirrlier tunes are the sort that demand a deep dive. “Bad Blood” is my particular favorite. The song feels like a raw nerve and hit on a lot of truth. All Are Saved is an album that is constantly poking and prodding and forever unsettled. Though I weirdly didn't make time for 2017's Changer (outside of the magnificent "Brickwall" which is in my Top 20 songs of the 2010s if I remember correctly and was recently the centerpiece of an improvised interpretive dance I did with Rosie in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner, more on that later) and 2018's Aftering, and I don't have a good excuse for that considering how much I love this record.

#46 - Lemuria - The Distance is So Big

Lemuria - The Distance is So Big

Bridge 9, 2013

Lemuria is one of my Minnesota bands. One of the bands I listened to obsessively while we were living up there that, even though they’re from Buffalo, I still associate with long bike rides around the lakes, drives over the Mississippi on my way to work at the Half Price Books in Saint Paul, and blaring from my computer speakers alone in our apartment while Jenny was at work. My taste was changing a little in 2013 and I was revisiting a lot of the pop-punk from my teenage years looking to get  back to basics. Lemuria took that pop-punk sound, married it to indie-pop, and yet all of the songs took surprising turns. Sheena Ozzella’s vocals wouldn’t be out of place in one of the K Records twee-pop bands from the 90s, but it’s also commanding (and an excellent contrast to Drummer Alex Kerns’ deadpan vocals). The bands 2017 release Recreational Hate is a fantastic record and an honorable mention, but The Distance is So Big wins out because it feels like a celebration. It also has “Brilliant Dancer” which was my runaway favorite song of 2013 and just put that thing on and try not to get sucked in. Usually when a song takes you on a ride it’s a 7-minute epic (see: Neko Case’s “Curse of the I-5 Corridor,” Destroyer’s “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker) and Lemuria shifts the song half a dozen times in about 3-minutes and somehow it feels...cohesive? Somehow, someway. Give the track a listen and if you’re not sold I don’t know how to help the dark lump of stone in the place where your joy should be.

#47 - Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See

Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See 

Domino, 2011

Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect I would be an Arctic Monkeys fan. All it took was for Alex Turner to prove to me that he wasn’t just another thin and pasty Pete Doherty knock off with his sublime soundtrack to Richard Ayoade’s 2010 film Submarine. After playing those five songs every day for months on end, I was willing to give the band a shot. I did a feature on this blog where I listened to their albums one by one in an attempt to wonder if the band had always been as good as they were on Suck it and See and if I had good reason to kick myself for writing them off. While each of the three preceding albums has one great song (“When The Sun Goes Down”; “Flourescent Adolescent”; “Cornerstone”), Suck it and See did an inverse in that 11 of the songs were pretty damn good and one was a baffling and unlistenable bit of cock rock (“Brick by Brick”). One dud is easy to overlook on an album laced with righteous rock and roll jams like “Suck it and See,” “She’s Thunderstorms,” “Piledriver Waltz,” and the gorgeous crooned ballad “Love is a Laserquest.” The title track is still one of the only songs I know all the words to and one I will catch myself singing out of nowhere (and has been a nursery rhyme for both Rosie and Goldie). If you told me in 2010 that I would have not one, but two Arctic Monkeys albums on my Top 50 of the Decade list (and one in the honorable mentions) I would think you were out of your damn mind. But here we are. Despite their posturing photo shoots, greasy hair, and pasty skin, I am helpless when it comes to a muscular rock n’ roll hook.

#48 - Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Wichita, 2010

It’s almost a cheat to sneak this onto the Best of the Decade list considering that it came a mere three weeks into 2010, but what I love about this one now is that it clearly sets a template for the growth LC! would exhibit on each consecutive album over the course of the decade. If Hold On Now, Youngster and We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed felt like a band chaotically churning out a lifetime’s worth of songs up they had been living with up until that point, Romance is Boring felt like the band truly taking shape. It proved that they weren’t going to fizzle out and while their fanbase is a bit niche, that niche is as passionate and rabid as the best of ‘em. Considering the bands punk-meets-twee-pop roots, it was fair to wonder how these songs would age, and though they are evocative of one’s early twenties (read: they are evocative of my early, frequently misspent twenties), songs like “There are Listed Buildings,” “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State,” and “In Media Res” are still tracks I would never skip if they came on shuffle. While this album still has a playful brattiness to it, Romance is Boring found the band slowing down the tempo and Gareth Campesinos leaning into his pervasive moroseness to surprsing effect. Tracks like “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future” and “Who Fell Asleep In” found the band proving they were more than just a one trick pony, and looking at the records that followed--Hello Sadness, No Blues, Sick Scenes--you can see a throughline that starts right here.

#49 - Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt

Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt

Don Giovanni, 2013

Katie Crutchfield used Cerulean Salt to launch her career at Merge Records, releasing a couple of solid indie rock records in 2015’s Ivy Tripp and 2017’s Out of the Storm, but her breakout Cerulean Salt, which sounds like bedroom demos in comparison, is the one that still sticks with me. It’s so intimate and imperfect in the best way. Crutchfield’s voice constantly sounds at the verge of falling apart and it gives these songs so much life. From desperate and hushed tracks like "Brother Bryan" and "Swan Dive" to big, anthemic rockers like "Coast to Coast" and "Misery Over Dispute," Cerulean Salt excels at capturing the artist's raw power before refinement.

#50 - Modern Baseball - Holy Ghost

Modern Baseball - Holy Ghost

Run For Cover, 2016

Despite liking this album quite a bit when it was released, it has become much more vital in the intervening years. A lot of that has to do with the way the band collapsed in on itself at the peak of its success. You can see what happened in heartbreaking detail in the documentary short Tripping in the Dark. Brendan Lukens is clearly mentally unwell in that thing (he has since been diagnosed with bioplar disorder), which makes his songs on the back half of Holy Ghost that much more affecting (particularly the album closer “Just Another Face”). Jake Ewald’s contributions in the album’s first half are Modern Baseball at their best, striking that perfect blend between pop-punk and emo revivalism and delivering some of the decade’s catchiest hooks.

My Favorite Albums of the 2010s

Over the next couple of months I'm going to be posting my favorite albums of the 2010s. Each album will get a post, and I should note upfront that this was made mostly by intuition adhering to my relatively limited indie rock worldview (with occasional forays into other genres). To do a Best Of, or acting as an authority on something as objective as music, feels more and more impossible the more I keep listening and interfacing with it. I know what I like, and I tend to like the things that I like with white hot passion and occasionally insane fervor.

This wasn't an easy list to make, and it is frequently at odds with the year-end lists I made over the last decade. It was fascinating to see how things shook out. Which dark horse contenders from, say, 2016, would become one of the most enduring records in my personal music-listening diet. Or which 2013 album was totally unknown to me at the time and cracked the Top 3. When I graduated and thus left KJHK in 2009 the way I listened to music changed. I spent a solid 3-4 months listening to nothing but the Lemonheads and when I came out I had broken myself of the MUST STAY ON THE CUTTING EDGE MUST LISTEN TO EVERY NEW THING THERE IS. That was quite literally my job for the last two years or so of my time at KJ, and while that was the perfect place for my music brain at the time, it was not at all sustainable. That led to a little bit of scaling back in regard to new musical frontiers. I still occasionally stuck my toe into ambient or hip-hop if I could find something with enough crossover appeal, but mostly I just dug in to what I liked, which is typically guitar-based music with great songwriting. It's just how it is. I don't really even try anymore. 

However, I feel like I love music more now than I ever did. I appreciate it more with some more living under my belt. I started this blog in 2009 mere days after asking my future wife out for the first time, and it's weird to think that this has been with me as long as she has. It was created primarily as a way to reconnect with all of the records I had been hoarding and to shock myself with how much money I had blown on LPs over the years. Things got derailed when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had to start selling off my collection to pay for two years worth of out-of-pocket maximums and whittling it down to what I deemed "The Essentials." Ideally I'd like to work my way through all over again in an effort to even further pare down the collection because my hoarder brain has been replaced with a librarian brain and that is where we are now. 

So yeah, this list was hard, and there is plenty left off, and I'm sure plenty I will wish I could fine-tune when it is over. But I can't help myself. I love making these lists, and the Best of the Decade (or Favorites of the Decade, I suppose) list is the absolute must fun to compile and obsess over. Thanks for being here. 

My Favorite Songs of 2018

My Favorite Albums of 2018

Posted @ Medium

https://medium.com/mountsleepyhead/my-favorite-albums-of-2018-85a0c08365e1

My Favorite Songs of 2017

Posted @ Medium

https://medium.com/mountsleepyhead/my-favorite-songs-of-2017-a3553bb1afc0

My Favorite Albums of 2017

Posted @ Medium

https://medium.com/mountsleepyhead/my-favorite-albums-of-2017-a713b96797b9