The best albums of the year (so far)
God help me it’s a bad habit, but I started to think about my top 10 albums for the year and I had to have a little lie down. For many people, this year has been too stressful to be listening to new music, but if the change of season has piqued your curiosity, here’s a cheat sheet to some of the best this year so far.
The first great album of the year came in January with 070 Shake’s debut, entitled Modus Vivendi. It’s an androgynous, alternative hip-hop record soaked in autotune and crafted with fastidious obsession.
We also got Circles from Mac Miller.
It’s arguably his best work, which makes me sad he wasn’t around to hear how much we all loved it.
In February, King Krule went off-piste, Tame Impala slowed down to a crawl, and Christine and the Queens graced us, but, for me, it was all about Caribou. His album, plus Fourtet’s from the following month, got me through lockdown, and they still get heavy rotation around sunset.
We had the gorgeous, vulnerable Nadia Reid to get us through March and beyond.
Waxahatchee made a really nice album, English singer Lapsley spun together a lovely-sounding debut and Lil Uzi Vert continued his assault on the emo hip-hop he helped pioneer.
Fiona Apple sent us to Fetch the Bolt Cutters in April, causing reviewers to froth all over their thesauruses. Kali Uchis, Yaeji and Thundercat all delivered the goods and The Strokes made a decent return to form too. But, my personal favourite was discovering DJ Python. I describe it as downbeat reggaeton, although I’m not sure that helps. It’s the most hypnotic record of the year and I remain utterly obsessed.
By the time we got to May, Reb Fountain had me pining for live music. Listening to that record, I could practically smell Auckland’s Karangahape Rd. Perfume Genius broke my heart. Moses Sumney completed his opus, Charlie XCX made the first great lockdown party record and The 1975 beautifully ripped off Billy Joel.
Bob Dylan stole the thunder out of June with his rough and rowdy ways. Truly amazing. Haim delivered sunkissed, lilted lullabies and Run The
Jewels gave aggression a safe space following a rort of racial violence. Neil Young gave us a record he made 45 years ago.
I was so obsessed with The Beths, Taylor Swift and The Chicks in July, it turns out I missed an album from Jonathan Bree! I’ll tuck that away for later, thank you. There was a very promising debut from Paige, and a raucous Irish band called Fontaines DC brought the house down.
The last few months have given us the soft psychedelia of Flaming Lips, the Ascension of Sufjan Stevens, a reinvention from Angel Olsen and the wild, genrebendingmadness of Glass Animals. Sola Rosa dropped a great one and Church and AP made their mark with At Thy Feet.
It’s not over yet and it’s gonna be a hard top 10 to pick, but for these records and more, I amtruly grateful.