Well, there's no other way to put it: This was the best year musically for me since 2019. Probably 5 albums here would've been my album of the year if they had come out in 2021. Two years of real letdowns paid me back and then some.... here's the stuff:
First the honorable mentions:
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Endless Rooms
The Black Keys - Dropout Boogie
The Sheepdogs - Outta Sight
Flasher - Love Is Yours
Color Green - Color Green
Brendan Benson - Low Key
Peach Pit - From 2 to 3
15. Oso Oso - Sore Thumb
My first foray into true Emo, these guys sucked me in with their 2019 debut Basking in the Glow. The amazing guitar work and the catchiness of the vocals are still here, however, due to the death of the founding lead guitar player, this album was left about 20% unfinished. The songs on this release are still strong, yet I can tell they needed a final polishing that unfortunately never happened. I will most definitely keep my eyes peeled for whatever frontman Jade Lilitri comes up with next.
14. Drugdealer - Hiding in Plain Sight
70’s R&B with a little yacht rock mixed in? Sign me up. 2019s Raw Honey was enjoyable but apparently not good enough for even an honorable mention on my 2019 list. This one is an easy listener all the way through and a significant improvement. So many catchy hooks and cool little instrumental parts. Multiple singer cameos keep it fresh.
13. Death Cab For Cutie - Asphalt Meadows
Death Cab is a band that’s always been in my orbit, so to speak. I can make a killer 15-track playlist of their best stuff that rivals any band IMO, but they’ve never really made one front-to-back unbelievable album. 2011’s Codes and Keys, and 2015 follow-up Kintsugi were as close as they got for me, but still not quite. Thank You For Today came out in 2018 and was really lackluster - I thought they had lost it - but this offering is super good! They seemed to regain their gusto and get back to what they’re best at, which is creating mid to uptempo pop rock with crazy infectious choruses. This a very enjoyable album all the way and I’m glad they’re still going at it.
12. Toro Y Moi - Mahal
Genre bender supreme Chaz Bear is back with album #7. This is the first Toro album I’ve actually checked out front to back and I’m certainly glad I did. After cycling through his discography, it’s clear 2015’s What For? is the one that truly hits hard for me but Mahal is very, very good as well. Sort of an equal blend of psych, funk, pop, and rock with a little R&B mixed in.
11. Cold Jackets - Health Queen Squeeze
This is the sophomore effort from this Austin, TX duo. With James Petralli (of White Denim fame) on production, they’ve unlocked a new level. It’s mostly garage rock but it’s punky at times and they also aren’t afraid of a synth. Super catchy hooks and some nice little riffs throughout.
10. Band of Horses - Things are Great
This is one of those bands that has sort of been in my orbit for the better part of 10 years yet I never really dug into them. I believe one of the fellas mentioned that this offering was very good and boy were they right. It's beautifully written melodic indie rock in its purest form. I never did go back and listen to anything from their back catalog, but from everything I’ve seen this is sort of a springboard back to an earlier (more successful) sound, similar to what I previously mentioned about Death Cab.
9. Mamalarky - Pocket Fantasy
These folks are back for their sophomore offering after releasing their self-titled debut two years ago. The formula still applies: some guitar-driven pop goodness, some trippy synthy stuff, and some beautiful female vocals laid over all of it. I can’t get enough of it and I think it’s better than the debut - a feat not often accomplished.
8. Small Paul - Strangeland EP
A side project from our boys The Moondoggies, this is obviously in the same vein. I think this little collection of tracks is better as a whole than the most recent Moondoggies stuff. The lead singer’s voice is so fitting and excellent. I have a long-established track record of including an EP in my year-end list and here I am again. If this was a full-length album it would be an album of the year contender.
7. The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention
If you asked me if Radiohead was an all-time level band for me I would quickly say no. However, they have 2 releases that are relatively high on my best 100 since ‘90 list and I recently read (and loved) a book about the making of Kid A, so perhaps I’m kidding myself. The Smile is a 3 piece consisting of Thom Yorke and his main man Jonny Greenwood and a sort of jazz-funk blender of a drummer in Tom Skinner. I’m not a musician so I’ll level with you: this shit sounds like Radiohead to me. I’m certain the reason Thom and Jonny spun off and did this has something to do with Skinner, but I don’t know what or why because my musical palate isn’t there. No matter; these songs are killer and I love the energy and everything about it. It’s the best Radiohead adjacent release in 15 years.
6. RHCP - Return of the Dream Canteen
Surprise! The boys released a companion album to Unlimited Love in a similar fashion to Radiohead with Kid A/Amnesiac. This is most definitely not a collection of B-Sides, but another complete album that was intentionally created alongside UL. I do believe that perhaps this album is better song-for-song, but I just cannot rank it as high as UL because UL came first. I truly enjoyed every song on this album. There is not a single skip track here; I can’t say that for UL. I just don’t have the same relationship with this batch of songs as I do with UL.
5. Arctic Monkeys - The Car
When Tranquility came out I was at first in awe at the fact that it sounded like literally nothing I’d ever heard before. Initially, I slept on it a little, landing it at #7 on my year-end list, but after repeated listens and a general understanding it’s since skyrocketed to my #45 favorite album since 1990. It slowly grew on me and it became my favorite album to play late at night at work when the lights went down and folks finished their drinks. The Car is a doubling down of sorts. Alex Turner is going to do exactly what he wants to do and everybody else can fuck off, and I respect that at this stage of his career. Although not a concept album like Tranquility, The Car is musically similar. More crooning, more string arrangements, less guitar (if that was even possible). I liked this album the first time I heard it. I loved it after listen #10. A true slow burner.
4. RHCP - Unlimited Love
The Chili Peppers were the very first band that I went absolutely ballistic over, sometime around 2002. They were the coolest, most badass group of musicians I could’ve ever imagined, and their output matched their persona. I watched the Funky Monks documentary and the live Off The Map concert film roughly a million times, and perhaps most importantly, enjoyed all of these things with a small group of friends that felt the exact same way. At that time they had already released a significant portion of what is now considered their best stuff: Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Californication, and By The Way. The 3 main John albums (at that point) were all very unique in nature and all represented the RHCP sound in different ways. 2006 brought what I’ve always felt was a coming together of sorts, Stadium Arcadium, which was a humongous 28-track double album that really crossed off every little thing that the Chili Peppers had ever been. And it was just as good as the rest of the prime stuff. Then John quit.
The Chili Peppers have never been universally lauded by the higher-brow music critics (the Grammys sure as shit don’t count) and that’s always bothered me. The easy answer as to why is Anthony Kiedis, who delivers head-scratching lyrics by the fistful and can’t really sing to begin with. Professional reviewers, in my opinion, routinely value lyrics over the melody to such an insane degree that it makes it hard to be taken seriously when your content is so filled with non-sequiturs and questionable, sometimes potentially offensive content. If you listen to the Chili Peppers and just can’t get past Anthony, I don’t blame you in the least. It takes a general acceptance of his bullshit to be all-in. But he excels almost as well as anybody at putting the melody at the forefront. His lyrics just fill holes in the song that goes along well with whatever else is happening. Once you get to understand his goal, it all becomes clearer.
Fast forward to Unlimited Love, the first album to feature Frusciante in 16 years. Leading up to this moment I was so unbelievably worried that the magic was gone. After all, 3/4 of the band is 60 years old. The two Klinghoffer-era albums were fine but nowhere near peak. Was that because of Josh or was that just because the window had closed? No band has ever put out anything truly elite at this stage, and the RHCP base sound is maybe the worst type to age well. The 3 singles leading up had me totally and completely bummed. And then the album dropped and it was everything I could’ve hoped for. After a few listens I was ready to say it was almost as good as their best stuff. I’ve since cooled off that opinion. The severe Kiedis missteps are becoming more common, but the musicianship is exactly what it always was, John rips off so many vintage solos, Flea is Flea, Chad is Chad, the chemistry is there, the songs are there, and Anthony is very, very often not only tolerable but a real asset to the big picture. This isn’t in the same rarified air as the “big 4” John albums, but it sits perfectly fine with me and I’m as excited as ever to see what comes next; it’s completely satisfying if you take into account how old they are and all that they’ve been through.
3. Andrew Bird - Inside Problems
Man, this one got its hooks into me really good. Andrew is a violinist by trade, often playing it in an unorthodox manner like a guitar. It’s weird in the best way. He’s released roughly 10,324 albums but this is my first and only exposure to him. His songwriting and singing here are unbelievable. Despite the violin etc., this is at its core pop music. He’s able to assemble his lyrics in such a smooth way syllabically that the choruses and verses just sort of flow right out (sort of in an Alex Turner circa AM way). This album is in my opinion equal parts Father John Misty, Lou Reed, and Kevin Morby. A real contender for album of the year all the way to the end.
2. Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
I FINALLY was able to fully digest and appreciate Spoon this year. It started with the release of Lucifer and then trickled down to almost their whole discography. This one isn’t as good as Hot Thoughts or the masterpiece Transference, but it’s extremely good. 20 years into their career, it’s shocking to see that they can still put out albums with the following formula: 80% classic Spoon sound, 20% something new. This one is a straight-ahead rocker, something they haven’t really done before. The only thing keeping this out of my number-one spot is about 3 songs that I’m not 100% all in on. I’m quibbling; it’s an excellent album.
1. Dawes - The Misadventures of Doomscroller
After only recently becoming a Dawes connoisseur, I was a bit worried about a new album considering the two most recent, 2018’s Passwords, and 2020’s Good Luck With Whatever did not blow my skirt up. There was a chance the best was behind them - a tale as old as time. Upon hearing the first single and then seeing that this bad boy is 6 songs and 46 minutes, my reaction was something along the lines of “yo yo yo wtf!”. I wouldn’t call this a blatant attempt at a jam album but that’s certainly what it sort of ends up being, with many little extended instrumental bridges and solos inserted snugly inside what otherwise are songs you’d expect to hear from these guys. I was concerned this was an attempt at a diversion from the fact that they had lost their magic and the songwriting was gone, but even with the “jammy” nature of them aside, these are unbelievably well-crafted vintage-era Taylor songs. Only “There’s a Joke In There Somewhere” doesn’t quite hit me 100%. But that’s just quibbling. The first 4 songs are so insanely good in every possible way I'm still in awe. This is my album of the year.
