15. Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center
It wouldn’t be a year end list without acknowledging what great thing Phoebe Bridgers did this year. After collaborating with fellow brilliant young songwriters Lucy Dacus & Julien Baker as Boygenius in 2018, Bridgers collaborated with Conor Oberst for Better Oblivion Community Center in 2019 and the result is an excellent record that never feels belabored and captures the energy of two great songwriters making magic.
14. The Menzingers - Hello Exile
Want to get the direct line to my heart? Just open your album with some crunchy power chords and you’ve got me. The Menzingers might as well be the patron saints of crunchy power chords at this point, and they’re as good as ever on Hello Exile. They sound bigger than they did on their Best of the Decade worthy After the Party, but the songs still hit you right in the gut. I still think this band would be better served by keeping their albums to 10 songs a pop, but it’s hard to argue when the bands songs are all so damn good.
13. Mike Adams at His Honest Weight - There is No Feeling Better
This album’s opening track– “Pressing Mesh” --was on one of those Spotify weekly release playlists in the summer, and There is No Feeling Better became one of my most anticipated albums of the year. The album is much more subdued than the blissed out power pop of “Pressing Mesh” would have you imagine, but it’s such a lovely record it’s hard to hold that against it. Adams knows his way around a tune, and tracks like “Do You One Better,” “Wonderful to Love,” and “No Feeling Better” highlight the interesting avenues he’s able to pursue outside of the power pop mold.
12. Kishi Bashi - Omoiyari
11. Ruston Kelly - Dirt Emo Volume 1
What strange alchemy is this? A Nashville country singer interpreting some of the greatest hits from my adolescence? Yes please. This is a very loose covers record, but that just adds to the charm. It helps that Ruston Kelly can SING, and his voice adds a new layer to these songs, some I’ve listened to hundreds of times. The brief verse and chorus of My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” is gorgeous and haunting. Saves the Day’s “At Your Funeral” is one of my favorite songs from high school and Kelly lends it an air of grace. There is an ache to “Teenage Dirtbag” and “Dammit” that you don’t get from the originals. And then there is his cover of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” which is so good it has caused me to reexamine Swift as an artist because that is a hell of a song. And that’s what you want from a covers record. You want to hear the songs you know interpreted in a way that you find things you never saw before.
10. The National - I Am Easy to Find
Based on the strength of the album’s lead singles, I had I Am Easy to Find pegged as an Album of the Year no doubter. The thing with the National is I tend to fall in love with their albums a year or two after they are released. They’re the ultimate slow-burn band. The concept behind this one--it’s billed as a collaboration with filmmaker Mike Mills, who produced a moving short film set to music from the album--is intriguing, but ultimately it leads to some poor booking decisions in regard to the tracklist. It’s in my top ten because there is a masterful album buried in here, you just need to cut away 6 tracks or so. First on the chopping block is “Roman Holiday,” which is inexplicably in the single spot at Track 3. It’s a listless tune that kills the momentum set by “You Had Your Soul With You” and “Quiet Light” and causes the listener to reset before “Oblivions,” which is problematic because it’s one of the most emotionally intense tracks on the album and “Roman Holiday” kills the flow. Instrumental-esque pieces “Her Father in the Pool,” “Dust Swirls in Strange Light,” and “Underwater” add texture, but ultimately they work better in Mills’ film than the album itself. I’d also argue for turning “Hey Rosey” and “Hairpin Turns” into b-sides. That’s a hell of a lot of work, but what is leftover is some of the most engaging and interesting stuff the National has ever done. The introduction of female voices into the bands very male sound is eye-opening and incredible.
9. The Hold Steady - Thrashing Thru the Passion
Thrashing Thru the Passion feels like a true return to form (read: Boys and Girls in America form) for the Hold Steady. Franz Nicolay is back on keys, and coincidentally, the songs never stop rocking. Heaven is Whenever and Teeth Dreams found the band spreading their wings a bit (coinciding with Craig Finn’s launching a solo career and growing as a songwriter), and while I like those albums, they’re more of a mixed bag than the first four records in their discography. Since the B Side of Thrashing Thru the Passion was already released piecemeal on Spotify over the last couple of years, the album lacks the punch to make it an absolute killer, but it’s still the Hold Steady doing what the Hold Steady does best, which is making kick ass rock and roll records that you want to exhaust yourself listening to.
8. Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains
Upon hearing of David Berman’s death, all I could muster was a quiet “Goddamnit” under my breath. Having read the interviews and profile pieces that came out in advance of Berman’s rebranding (and reemergence from 10 years of self-imposed musical hibernation), it was clear that the dude was in a weird place, and when the news came out that he was dead, it was hard to think that it was anything but by his own hand. It’s hard not to look at this as a suicide note, the same way it was hard not to read Mastersystem’s album from last year as Scott Hutchison’s suicide note. Purple Mountains is the most depressive album from Berman, who was always a serial depressive by nature. And yet it’s right up there with the rest of the Silver Jews classics. The songwriting chops that will be Berman’s lasting legacy are on full display here. But you hear a song like “All My Happiness is Gone” and you wonder why no one was checking in on the dude. Berman leaves behind some of the greatest songs of all time, and on Purple Mountains he proved that he was better than ever. And that is heartbreaking. It’s all heartbreaking.
7. Laura Stevenson - The Big Freeze
Considering that Wheel was in my Top 5 of the decade, I’m going to be all over anything Laura Stevenson puts out into the world. Where Stevenson’s albums typically balance quiet, sensitive tunes with raucous pop songs, The Big Freeze is moody, somber, and it goes deep. It took me a long time to come around to this one, and honestly it really comes down to the timing of the release. It came out in Spring, but this is a Winter record if there ever was one. A record built for driving around in the cold using the warmth of these songs to keep you alive.
6. Craig Finn - I Need a New War
Look, I wear my Hold Steady/Craig Finn homerism pretty clearly on my sleeve, but what am I supposed to do here? Finn wrote two outstanding albums in a year that was, quite frankly, wanting for outstanding albums. Finn’s fourth solo outing is his best, and it’s a real treat to track his progress from Clear Heart, Full Eyes to now. It’s a growth chart, and Finn’s already keen eye has grown keener. The way he nails different shades of melancholy is particularly impressive. While the Hold Steady has always had a lot of sadness in their tunes about druggy youths and party kids, Finn really lets it unfurl here. Finn’s solo work has always been a fantastic counterpoint to the Hold Steady, and it’s a treat that we get both the party and the comedown in the same year.
5. Orville Peck - Pony
4. Matthew Milia - Alone at St. Hugo
On Alone at St. Hugo, Frontier Ruckus’ frontman Matthew Milia returns to the fertile grounds of his youth that made Eternity of Dimming one of my favorite albums of the decade (#2 to be precise). I’m a big fan of both Fruckus records that came after Dimming, but Alone at St. Hugo comes closest to capturing the magic of that record. It’s a shaggy collection of tunes that finds Milia leaning into Big Star-esque power-pop with wonderful results. Milia's detail oriented songwriting continues to be some of my favorite stuff in the business.
3. Why? - AOKOHIO
AOKOHIO was one of the most exhilarating album experience of the year for me. The album was released piecemeal in six movements every other week and it was just such an exciting way to experience an album. It ensured that no tracks got lost in the middle, and that you could spend time with all of it. AOKOHIO had its fair share of haters upon release, and a lot of the criticism seems to stem from the fact that a lot of the tracks are more like song fragments than songs proper. To the haters I say: Do you not appreciate Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes? Yoni Wolf is as Ohio as he comes, so it makes sense that there is some GBV in his blood. Ultimately this feels like an artist grappling with middle age and still feeling totally unsettled. It makes for a fascinating listen and includes some surprisingly spritely pop gems (“Rock Candy,” “Reason”) in addition to his classic depressive meditations (“Peel Free,” “The Crippled Physician”).
2. PUP - Morbid Stuff
Toronto punks PUP continue to figure their thing out album after album. 2016’s The Dream is Over made my list, and Morbid Stuff held the top spot for a not insignificant portion of the year. I feel like they have really found their identity on this one. They’re brash, they’re funny, the riffs kick ass, the hooks are outstanding, the energy is out of control, they can get dark when they need to, they get it. You know that feeling when an album just clicks? Where you're halfway through and you have that epiphany of like, "Holy hell, this is a great records, I can't wait to listen to this ten more times today!" Morbid Stuff does that, and just revisiting it to do this write-up I want to listen to it ten times today.
1. Oso Oso - Basking in the Glow
