2015 has come to an end and has left us with so many lasting memories: Cubs got good, Cutler got the respect he deserves, Bulls got rid of Thibs, GOP got stuck with Trump, Star Wars got awesomely dark, Don Draper got his enlightenment, and (most importantly) Jeremy got a new job. With a new job came less commute time (cutting down on my reading input), but also more time to listen to music at work, giving me plenty of time to wade through the musical landscape of 2015 and cherry pick out the albums that resonated with me. Also, with this new job came ample amounts of time off, allowing me to complete this list during January, rather than rolling it out at the beginning of February like I usually do. Jeremy - 1, Procrastination - 0!Technical Side Note: At the bottom of each album is a Youtube window of my favorite song from the album. The window is supersmall, so you can play it and not watch the video, or you can enlarge the video, or you can not play it at all. It's just there for your reference. Do with it what you will. Well, make sure to ask it's permission first if what you want do is kinda dirty.
Without further ado, here is my list of the Twenty Best Albums of 2015!!!!!
When I first moved to Chicago in 2010, I was working at the Lincoln Park Zoo, listening to mad amounts of Chillwave. And while I was living in this synth-reverb heaven, I would continuously read music critics bagging on the genre, writing off Chillwave as a fad, shitting on Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian, and Washed Out. Cut to last month, and every end of the year list has the newest Tame Impala album close to the top. Hey Critics! This is Chillwave!!! Not that I'm hating on the music itself, I love Chillwave, and this album does not disappoint. Written and recorded completely by singer Kevin Parker, Currents hits all of the DIY-Chillwave bench marks, fuzzy guitars, soft synths, simple drum beats, random samples and voice mods, but he does it with such a sunny atmosphere surrounding everything that you can't stop yourself from getting hooked. It sounds like a great Toro album, and that is nothing but the utmost compliment.
Song: The Moment
Vulnicura was born from the ashes of the long-time relationship of Bjork and Matthew Barney, which ended in 2013. The heartbreak and pain from the breakup spurred Bjork to write her most personal (and best) album since Vespertine. The songs take their time. This is especially true of the dual epics of Black Lake and Family, which take up eighteen minutes of running time and both of which slowly build until all of the energy is unleashed in a tide of anguish. Those two split the album into two halves: the first pensive and gentle in it's consideration of what caused things to fall apart; the second more aggressive, angry about what this split has done to her psyche but resolute in her will to grow from it and to become stronger. Together these two concepts create an emotional musical experience that vaults Vulnicura into the echelon of Bjork's best.
Song: Mouth Mantra
Almost Famous is a sixteen minute, six song EP from female rock duo, Slutever. It's almost unbelievable that only two ladies can produce so much sound and scuzzy atmosphere. This one's just a straightforward rocker, with grungy guitar snaking its way throughout, and the drums drunkenly stumbling along. With lines like "You're already drunk, it's 10 AM, I predict death's imminent" are strung throughout, surrounded by reverb at each turn. Six killer cuts.
Song: I Miss America
What better way for Jamie XX to follow up two critically acclaimed albums with his band The XX and a full remix album of Gil-Scott Heron's I'm New Here, than to put out his own dance album full of the simplest beats and the warmest atmosphere. Anyone familiar with The XX will not be surprised by how much energy pulses through this album; while The XX albums were always quiet, there was constantly a soft dance beat being suppressed. There are guest features throughout, including both of his bandmates, but the real gems are when Jamie XX goes straight for the dancefloor jugular, such as album opener Gosh, and the rhythmic Sleep Sound.
Song: Sleep Sound
Ought sounds like a combination of Pinback's guitars, Interpol's rhythm section, led by Ian Curtis. Ought's version of Curtis is guitarist and singer Tim Darcy; his unique sing-speak is certainly the band's calling card, but he's surrounded by a swirl of guitars that churn along with him as he lament's the mundanity of life. This can be heard in the meandering seven minute Beautiful Blue Sky, when Darcy spouts out and repeats niceties such as "How's the family, How's your health been, Beautiful weather today, How's the job, How's the church?" It all comes together in a surprisingly powerful way, that when by the end he declares "I'm no longer afraid to die, for that is all that I have left, I'm no longer afraid to dance tonight, for that is all that I have left" you are right there with him, running to the dance floor to get out one last boogie.
Song: Beautiful Blue Sky
I like electronic music, I do. But I have gotten a little tired of the five minute long guitar solo that is popular EDM at the moment. As such, I end up gravitating towards two different kinds of electronic music: popcentric dance jams and ambient electronic instrumentals. Levon Vincent's self-titled album falls into the latter catagory. If you ever thought that the main beat from Axel F needed to be transposed onto a soft xylophone beat and then sampled over a series of gentle electronics, then this album is for you! Vincent functions as a more accessible Aphex Twin. That is not to say that this album isn't exciting; there are tons of dancey bits, but it really hits its stride when it sounds like Vincent is getting ready to introduce a musical deity, everything builds up until it hits its apex, followed by the gentle let down. I want to swim inside of this album.
Song: Small Whole-Numbered Ratios
The debut LP from Bully sounds like what the new Veruca Salt album should have sounded like. It's full of precise rocking jams with Alicia Bognanno's voice fluctuating from sing song to strained scream with ease. Bully takes the flannel covered chick rock from the nineties, and replicates it in a way that is so loyal that it remains enduring. Bognanno is able to portray such emotion with her voice that it raises up the instrumentals, which could have fit just as well on At the Drive In's debut album as they do here. Bognanno recalls the random details of a past relationship on I Remember: "I remember showing up at your house,
And I remember hurting you so bad" and later "I remember that naked photo, And I remember things getting better" painting the picture in a way that only angry rock music can do.
Song: Reason
This self-titled debut is so damn smooth. The trio move from disco beats to psychedelic freak-outs with all three members singing throughout. Having the female voice of bassist Guro Gikling to offset the falsetto of the two male members keeps a perfect balance leaving all the focus on Luis Santo's hypnotic guitar. This album would be the perfect thing to put on if you have just taken some acid and you are waiting for it to kick in, it'll be a nice marshmallow to land on when things stop making sense (or start making too much sense).
Song: Keep Me Alive
The second album by British garage rockers, Pins, mixes beauty with the grim just as well as its predecessor. When the beat is slow, singer Faith Holgate befittingly delivers her vocals with a shrug, but Wild Nights really shines when things pick up and Holgate's delivery gets more aggressive like on Oh Lord and Dazed By You. Pins, I was sick the last time you were in Chicago, please come back soon!
Song: Dazed By You
Earl Sweatshirt sure knows how to make a breakup album sound like a breakup album. I Don't Like Shit... is at once both angry and melancholy, both pensive and rash. Sweatshirt stands out among most young rappers for me because he seems to understand his flaws, and he addresses them when he raps, so he can be boastful and showy but then immediately follow that with an acknowledgement that it was bullshit. His production on this album is of the same vein that was shown on his last album, Doris, but much murkier. The centerpiece is Grief when Sweatshirt spends half the track talking shit about being the best, "I was making waves, you were surfing in 'em" but by the end he ends up focusing on his insecurities and his plights and "Thinking 'bout my grandmama, find a bottle, I'ma wallow when I lie in that." Making sad look bad.
Song: Faucet
The debut album from the band formerly known as Viet Cong (new name pending) is an epic of winding post-punk, filled with spiky guitar riffs that hypnotize you into a stupor as the distant vocals of Matt Flegel drift in, sometimes barely comprehensible through all the layers of guitars and reverb running throughout but other times brutally aggressive, as if he is yelling though the wave of music that is drowning him out. The seven-track album runs just over thirty seven minutes long, ending in the droning epic Death, at eleven minutes long. Can't wait to hear what comes next from this currently unnamed band.
Song: Continental Shelf
The Decemberists have stretched their brand of literary folk into many different variations from album to album. What a Terrible World... finds them at their most radio friendly. No twelve minute songs dedicated to ancient Irish folktales, just four to five minute alt-folk gems. There are smatterings of blues guitar throughout, especially on Till the Water's All Long Gone, a gentle foreboding tune that you could easily imagine hearing at a bar set next to a moonlit Mississippi lake, and on Carolina Low, which consists solely of singer Colin Meloy, his guitar, and the occasional backing vocals to lull you into a resting slumber.
Song: Till the Water's All Long Gone
Multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Nellie McKay has always been a little ahead of her time; her first album being much more mature than her nineteen years of age at the time of its recording. Thus it seems fitting that she went all the way back to the 60's for the source material of her sixth studio album. McKay covers a variety of songs from the 60's highlighting the darker side of that decade, including songs by The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Paul Simon, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. The entire album is great, with McKay regularly improving upon the production of the original. The standouts of the album are Bold Marauder and Wooden Ships, when McKay gets to explore the psychedelic aspects of late sixties music, hinting at the grander mind-bending that would come in the 70's. "It's hi, ho, hey, I am the bold marauder! It's hi, ho, hey, I am the white destroyer!"
Song: Bold Marauder
Beach House did me a real favor this year. My love of them has vacillated from "enjoy" to "extremely enjoy" with every other album they release. So this year, Beach House decided to release two albums, thus eliminating the need for any vacillation. There is a darker tone to Beach House's trademark dream pop, and a seeming return to the more intimate sounds of their earlier works, most specifically it reminds me of 2008's Devotion. Victoria Legrand is the star of the album, her vocals setting the lush atmosphere that the music doesn't. There's even a roaring guitar solo that centerpieces the six minute plus Elegy to the Void. On Stars we get a very grounded Beach House, but one that's just as enjoyable as ever.
Song: The Traveller
Chicago's top mash-up duo, The Hood Internet, have been churning out quality mixtapes for nine years. And Mixtape Vol. 9 is easily their best work since Vol. 6 came out and changed the lives of three young gentleman sharing an apartment in Rogers Park in 2012. The album opens with a combo of Ratatat and No Diggity, and never stops dancing throughout it's twenty seven cuts. They used my favorite Daft Punk song, Around the World, as a backdrop to I Can't Feel My Face, and buried the rap from Still D.R.E. beneath the monster bass drops of Dillon Francis's Bruk Bruk. Hell, they even managed to salvage the abomination that is Nicki Minaj's Anaconda (worst produced song of all time), by extracting Nicki's raps and throwing them over the celebration beats of Galantis's Peanut Butter Jelly. Best of all, you can download this entire mixtape for free: Go Here.
Song: This is the whole album.
It's pretty incredible how much aural presence New Jersey's Screaming Females have for only three members. This is due in no small part to Marissa Paternoster, whose guitar shakes the bones of every song and whose voice is the guiding light that navigates you through the storm. The riff that opens Ripe is so good that it changed the trajectory of the music I was getting into, pushing me back towards a more raw powerful guitar driven sound. This album also has it's truly poppy moments, especially the softest track on the album Hopeless, which is lead by Paternoster's voice rather with the guitar which is barely dragging along behind her. But the album reaches its highest points when it dives deep into the power of the guitar of their leading lady. This album will shred your face off.
Song: Ripe
This is the album that I wish My Morning Jacket would have released after Z. Instead we got the interesting, but wholly uneven, Evil Urges, followed by 2011's watered down Circuital. But The Waterfall returns as the best balance of the floating surrealism that Jim James's voice can help create and the jamming guitar solos of the old times. The range and beauty of the guitar is what really makes this album amazing: in the gentle acoustic of Like A River to the 70's scuzz guitar that gives out to the clearest, most beautiful guitar solo of the album on In Its Infancy (The Waterfall) to the Wanted Dead or Alive-esque intro to Tropics (Erace Traces). This would definitely be a great album to have a couple of drinks to and fall asleep on the beach. The Waterfall is My Morning Jacket at their most lush and beautiful.
Song: Spring (Among the Living)
British 90's alt-shoegazers Swervedriver's first album in 17 years sounds like it could have been released immediately after its predecessor. Frontman Adam Franklin's guitar takes the forefront for most of the album, shining melodically through the fuzz of the other instruments. Despite his British heritage, Franklin's voice comes off more as a dreamy-eyed California gear head, softly weaving through the guitar's melodies. It's not often that a band returns after this much time off from the studio with such rejuvenation and fresh material, but the resulting album is a dream pop, shoegaze masterpiece. I often find myself drifting off into the universe that exists inside of the many layers of sound on Red Queen Arms Race, and Lone Star spins around and around, devolving into chaos and then righting itself, "You were always such a Lone Star."
Song: Last Rites
The best rock album of the year belongs to this Washington quartet. Singer Julia Shapiro's laconic delivery does nothing to undercut the angst that burns under each word. In opener Drone, she states "I never expect much from anyone, So I'm never disappointed, and I never have to trust" before lamenting that "he was just another man trying to teach me something." The lyrics and the accompanying music are equal parts genius. Chastity Belt delivers solid indie rock tracks throughout. The longest tracks on the album, On the Floor and Joke, serve as duel centerpieces; the best songs on each side, if we were talking vinyl or cassette. Each starting slow, with Shapiro throwing out apathetic lines like "I'm never satisfied, keep feeding myself lies" and "Nothing's serious, everything's a joke....let's light everything on fire" before each song breaks down into a long instrumental section. On the Floor stays slow, with the guitar slowly running itself out before the song gently ends, while Joke meanders its way into a guitar solo before whipping itself into a frenzy to end the track. These ladies know what's up.
Song: Joke
This album is fucking heartbreaking. Carrie and Lowell is the musical manifestation of the sadness and confusion that Stevens felt after the 2012 death of his mother: the titular Carrie, who was bipolar, schizophrenic, and mostly absent from his childhood; Lowell is her ex-husband, who currently runs Stevens's record label. The album is a stripped down affair, with only Stevens's voice, guitar, banjo, and the occasional sparse synths, used mostly as background atmosphere. Throughout the album, Stevens expresses his grief in the form of a longing for the lost chances to spend time with his mother and also that she will never know all of the pain that he feels by losing her. There are sections of this album where he embraces suicidal thoughts, as a possible method of dealing with his mother's ghost, but then later in the album he moves past those impulses and ruminates on memories he had with Carrie and Lowell in Oregon during three childhood summers. Fourth of July is the musical final conversation between himself and his mother, and it is endearingly soft and gentle and tragic with lines like "Did you get enough love, my little dove, why do you cry?" and "Make the most of your life, while it is rife, while it is light." Sufjan Stevens has created a beautiful, melancholy masterpiece, and in doing so, my favorite album of the year.
Song: All of Me Wants All of You
If you made it all the way to the end of this little article, then I thank you for reading my musical opinions of 2015. I hope you checked out some tunes on the way down here, and I look forward to hearing what the final year of Obama Camelot will bring us.
