Top 9 Albums of 2019

Another spectacular year for music has come and gone. So, as we move into a new decade, I’m taking an in depth look back at which albums stood out to make the last year of the 2010’s so memorable. 

1. Caroline Polachek — Pang

With her cacophonous voice working in perfect precision alongside her strong commitment to her own vision and artistry, Caroline Polachek’s first album under her own name is perhaps her most most refined work yet. Serving as executive producer alongside Danny L. Harle, Polachek built Pang to be a world all its own. What we know about life around us is transmogrified by each track into something ultra fantastic.

The visual for the album’s lead single, “Door,” thrusts us through the titular portals into Polachek’s singular, formative experiences. “Ocean of Tears” is a sprawling, yearning song about missing your long distance lover; Polachek’s “oooh”s in the chorus sound like the longing cries of a woman stuck at sea, calling out into the abyss in the hope of some respite. “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” finds Polachek in a similar place in life but in the opposite headspace. Now she’s burning up with carnal desires that can only be satiated by her lover. But the brilliance of the track lies in its upbeat, lilting production — underscored by a bass line of “ah ah, ah ah, ah AHs” — that contrasts the sexual frustration of the lyrics and makes for 2019’s most fun pop song. Caroline may be crying on the dance floor (“it’s so embarrassing!”) but it’s only because she knows that tonight she can’t get the kind of satisfaction that comes from being with your person. “You’re the only one who knows me, babe!” she exclaims. It’s joy and sadness all mixed together with the knowledge that she will be reunited with her love soon. While Pang’s lyrics are firmly grounded in human experiences, the album’s consistently cohesive production and art direction propels the the whole work into the upper echelon of artistic output, making Pang not only the best album of the year, but one of most fascinating.

2. Charli XCX — Charli

I’ve already written about this album somewhat extensively but it’s worth repeating. For an artist that has fully embraced fans and critics calling her the “future of pop,” it’s surprising that the hype has never affected the quality of her music. Charli XCX has always been an innovator in a sea of conformists. While her self titled album does not quite reach the hyperreal glacial robotic qualities of her previous mixtape Pop 2, it’s worth noting that Charli is the artist’s official third studio album and thus had to conform to some of the pressures of her label to make aspects more mainstream in order to get the excessive funding for an album cycle and tour. But aside from “Blame It On Your Love,” the original version of Pop 2’s exceptional tour de force closing song “Track 10,” Charli never sounds like anything that her radio-oriented peers are making. Even pure pop tracks like “1999” sparkle with clever lyrics and hypnotic hooks.

But Charli is best when it delves completely into the insane. “Shake It” is Charli’s invitation for her good friends to link up and deliver their most club-ready feature verses against a sweat-soaked, drum heavy dance beat. “Click” is a mammoth production filled with braggadocios lyrics that turns completely inside out in the last thirty seconds, like if you chopped and screwed a recording of a car crash. Other places find Charli more vulnerable than she’s ever been. “Official” and “White Mercedes” are soaring, tender love songs about finding new love and how to grapple with that love when you feel like you’re underserving of it. And “Gone” finds Charli teaming up with Christine and The Queens to wax poetic about anxieties before their fears come together and manifest into one of the best electronic breakdown’s of the decade. Charli cements Charli XCX’s status as the future of pop music while proving that she’s truly capable of capturing singular experiences and emotions and turning them into stellar pop music. What’s more, it proves that her music becomes the most potent when she isn’t hidden behind a glacial wall.

3. Lana Del Rey — Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Every word that can be written about NFR has already been written by critics who are smarter and more versed than I am. So what I’ll say is that it is indeed Lana Del Rey’s opus. Only Lana could cover a Sublime song and turn it into one of the most slinky, humid summertime anthems. “Venice Bitch,” though released in 2018, remains one of the most audacious and satisfying aural journeys Del Rey has ever turned out. Her end of the world sendoff “The greatest” is so gorgeously heartbreaking and completely singular in its perception of the times that clearly stands among her best works. Lana Del Rey’s lyricism has never been sharper and her vision never more precise. Norman Fucking Rockwell! inarguably solidifies Del Rey as the poet of our generation.

4. Dorian Electra — Flamboyant

Dorian Electra’s debut album Flamboyant signals the ushering in of an artist so genuinely exciting that they only come along every so often. Electra is non-binary, and their innovative, whip smart electropop music experiments with altering the pitch of their vocals throughout each song, to incredible effect. When you think you’ve figured out where a Dorian Electra song is headed next, you’d do well to think again.

Electra thrives on subverting expectations for both their music and their appearance. The production of the album’s title track explodes into a piece that wouldn’t sound out of place in the training montage of a Rocky film, complete with whip cracking sound effects. “Adam & Steve” gives Gaga’s “Born This Way” a run for its money as the best literal-gay-anthem released this decade. Each track here sounds almost completely different and yet Flamboyant is one of the most cohesive pop records to be released this year. It’s a masterwork from someone who has shed any desire to conform as a person and as an artist. Flamboyant makes me wish that more artists were as willing to be as insanely bold in their vision. The album’s final track, “fReAkY 4 Life” could be read as Dorian Electra’s plea to the rest of us: “I’m a freak forever, from my cradle to my grave/I want you to get freaky!” We’d do well to follow their advice.

5. FKA Twigs — MAGDALENE

FKA Twigs is unquestionably one of the greatest artists to debut this decade, so it’s really quite a blessing that she delivered her second full length album just over a month before the end of the year. MAGDALENE is greatly enhanced by the last five years of Twigs’ life. Her public relationships became public breakups and she endured an intimate surgery to remove six large fibroids tumors from her uterus. With these experiences having clearly informed each of the songs on the record, Twigs’ music has never sounded more introspective and raw. “cellophane,” one of the best songs of the year, begins with one simple, instantly aching question: “didn’t I do it for you?” She continues to question the aspects of the relationship, her voice strong and controlled but filled with palpable regret and confused desperation. It sounds like the words of someone at the end of their rope, frustrated and begging for answers they will never receive. Elsewhere, “fallen alien” pulses with rage, reminding us how powerful Twigs’ songs can be when she unleashes her anger onto a track. MAGDALENE slides along the spectrum of human emotion and gives us one of the most poetic works of the year from an artist at peak creative power.

6. Bat for Lashes — Lost Girls

One of the most criminally underrated artists this century, Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan continued her string of near-perfect albums with this year’s Lost Girls. Described by Khan as her tribute to music and films from the 80s, Lost Girls genuinely feels like it was plucked from an era decades ago and brought to the now. Khan has such a strong ear for calculated synths, drums, and guitars, and they all work together in perfect cohesion on this record to deliver a work that is truly special. “Kids In the Dark” sounds both like an already classic end credits song for a hit 80s film and a slow dance song for a high school dance where attendees sport puffy sleeves, side ponytails, and pleated trousers. “Jasmine,” perhaps the album’s best song, is Khan doing what she does best: imparting a dark, exotic tale of woe and love against a gothic, synth-heavy instrumental. Tracks on Lost Girls are just begging to be used in a stylish horror thriller set in the Hollywood hills, and it’s that kind of specific vision that makes each Bat for Lashes release so individual and exciting.

7. Slayyyter — Slayyyter

Following up a string of hit underground electropop singles with a debut mixtape that was actually strong enough to justify her place amongst the Charli XCX’s and Kim Petras’ of the world was always going to be the challenge for Slayyyter. Luckily, each new track on this album sounds just as deliciously fresh and unique as the six songs released prior that still made it on the album. Everything here pulses and pounds with thumping production and bratty lyrics reminiscent of early Kesha but more tongue in cheek. “Mine,” the album’s most pure pop song (and one of the year’s best singles), is romantic and infectious with the now gay-twitter-infamous “oh me oh my” chorus. Tracks like “Tattoo” and “Touch My Body” have this same glittery, new-love quality baked into mathematically perfect pop songs. “Alone” and “BFF” show off Slayyyter’s ability to craft songs that sound like signature Britney hits if Britney’s management would’ve allowed her to be a little more fun. And while extremely recent developments have gotten Slayyyter into some trouble, there’s no denying that her music is some of the most insanely fun material released this year.

*This was written before recent controversies that have placed Slayyyter in some hot water. This review is simply regarding the music and not an endorsement of anything else!

8. Orville Peck — Pony

For me, few things are more satisfying than discovering a new queer artist who seems to tap into the experiences that have been so formative for me that they have shaped who I am. Orville Peck, with his subversive gay country music, is an artist that I never realized I wanted or needed. Growing up in the midwest I was acquainted with country music and I always wanted to connect with it more than I did. I loved the storytelling in country music being gay left me with a disconnect from the genre because I couldn’t relate to the male artists who wrote about losing women and families (even though I love so many women country artists).

When my boyfriend introduced me to Orville Peck early this year I fell in love immediately — and not just because of his gorgeous jawline and eyes, the only features that can be seen underneath the mask he wears. His voice is so wonderfully suited to the genre; it’s deep and bellowing and grows into a powerful, booming force in his choruses. His songwriting is classic country as well, taking us on a journey through. his experiences in what sounds like it could be the Wild West but is probably more likely his native Canada. Peck leaves no room for interpretation with his sexuality — he’s happy to throw male pronouns into a country song — and it feels genuinely powerful to listen to a male country artist sing “met a lot of men who called me pretty” on songs like “Winds Change.” Peck is a gifted storyteller and it’s exciting to think of all the things he’ll do in the next decade.

9. Miley Cyrus — SHE IS COMING

It may be just an EP, but Miley Cyrus’ SHE IS COMING stands as one of the best works from a chameleonic artist who has only continued to grow and refine her sound. It also contains some of the best songs of Cyrus’ career. “Mother’s Daughter,” with its pro-abortion Instagram campaign and “don’t fuck with my freedom!” chorus, is an anthemic song that’s more than welcome when America could be staring down the barrel of four more years of D*nald Tr*mp. “Unholy” and “The Most” see Cyrus embracing her imperfections and vices to fascinating, touching results. Even the absurd “Cattitude” that features a RuPaul verse where the world-famous drag queen raps “bust my pussy but while I’m fingering your butt” is a ton of fun and a bit of comic relief on a record that actually contains a breadth of emotion from one of the most interesting and persistent artists of the decade.