Every year is a great year for new music, good shit from old favorites, new discoveries and surprises big and small. 2019 was no different. Damn, had a lot of trouble narrowing my list down, but a fun exercise to go back through and listen to what moved me in some way over the course of the year. I think I’ve got it where I want it, but with the usual caveats that tomorrow my whims may blow a different way. That being said, my top 100 (and a variety of playlists) are below. I also have a playlist which is more like 300 of my favorites from 2019 and any of them (and probably a bunch of others) could easily be in place of any of these, so before you get in touch with me about what stupid thing I left off (and I’m sure I did… I listened to literally thousands of albums this year and still missed more than I heard), please check out the big kahuna playlist. If it’s on there, yes I loved it, too, maybe as much as you, maybe not, but don’t hate me either way.
Before getting into it, a few more playlist links:
Here again are my favorite 300 or so albums from 2019. That is, almost everything I seriously dug this year.
Here is a playlist with about 100 of my favorite albums from the decade about to end.
Here is a playlist with 100 or so of my favorite tracks from 2019.
Here is a playlist with my 150 or so Weekly RecommNeds picks from 2019. (I have a weekly column on JamBase dedicated to new music discovery, a place where I share some great new music that may not be on your radar. You should check it out, it’s good shit and I like to think I have a decent track record. Most weeks during the year.)
Alright, without any further ado, my favorites of 2019, broken up into groups as I do every year, alphabetical within groups.
My Top Ten for 2019 (alphabetical)
Listen to my top ten playlist here.
Reid Anderson/Dave King/Craig Taborn — Golden Valley Is Now
Sometime back in 2003 I probably had a dream which went something like what if the Bad Plus and The Benevento Russo Duo combined forces somehow. I have no idea what that might have sounded like, but I’d like to think it’s something like what this record sounds like. Anderson & King of the Bad Plus go electric with Craig Taborn on keyboard duty and it is some sweet genre-defying shit.
Neal Francis — Changes
Every goddamn track on this is an ear-opening groovalicious revelation. I want to say everyone was talking about Changes, but the truth is the only people who were talking about it were the ones who were lucky enough to hear it. Everyone else? They’ll come around eventually. Old school meets progressive, but 100% funky as funk.
Steve Gunn — The Unseen In Between
Steve Gunn is one of those guys who probably gets a little bit better every day. What The Unseen In Between made me realize is how his guitar playing informs his songwriting. Many great guitar players put out good albums, the guitar greatness largely confined to solos. Gunn doesn’t use solos to show us his greatness, he somehow brings his lovely, unique playing style into the songwriting itself, the words and melodies at one with the playing. I can’t quite describe it, but I can’t help but hear it and that’s all that matters. I want to say this is his masterpiece, but I’m not sure we’re at the Steve Gunn peak quite yet.
Hampshire & Foat — Saint Lawrence
The reason why I love trying to turn people on to music they haven’t heard yet, haven’t gotten a chance to discover and fall in love with for the first time, is because that discovery is one of the best damn feelings there is and why wouldn’t you want everyone to share it. That’s what I felt when someone turned me onto this one, a legit stunning ambient beauty. The kind of understated perfection that was recorded in some remote church somewhere because where else would you record such a thing. I hate to choose an absolute favorite, but truth be told there wasn’t a record released in 2019 I loved more than this one. I only regret not being able to hear it for the first time ever again.
Aldous Harding — Designer
This was a late entry into my top ten, but when I went back through the contenders I couldn’t shake this one from my ears. Sometimes it feels like I love an album for a single track and “The Barrel” off Designer is one of my favorites of the year, a song to listen to on repeat if not for the fact that you’d miss the rest of the groovefolk masterpieces on there. So good.
Karen O & Danger Mouse — Lux Prima
A few years back Danger Mouse had the song “Black” with Norah Jones, a track that still gives me chills to hear. Somehow he found a better muse and collaborator in Karen O and took the brooding energy of that song and built an entire stunning album around it. Which is damn fine with me! So good.
Kevin Morby — Oh My God
If Steve Gunn writes songs around his guitar-playing style, Kevin Morby seems to write them about the simple concept of repetition. No one can take a theme or a lyric or any bit of a song and make songwriting magic with it by repeating it, sometimes the same, sometimes twisted, sometimes, quixotically, not at all. Whatever, Morby is probably my favorite songwriter these days and Oh My God is just pure Kevin Morby, perfectly realized and executed, each song showing you something different, new secrets revealed, every time you listen.
Papir — VI
Hey, you dig jams? I mean, really heavy, psychedelic, legal-only-in-Europe jams? The best studio holyshit!, mindblowing improv in 2019 came courtesy of the Danish Papir. These guys are so pure of jamgasm spirit, they don’t even name their albums or tracks. They reach out into the ether and pull out shit like VI.III and you have no choice but to turn that shit up, because turh that shit up!
Purple Mountains — Purple Mountains
The first time I heard David Bermans ultimate opus, Purple Mountains, I actually had to check myself. Was this really this good?!?!? Sometimes you hear something and you’re actually not sure, you actually have to go back and relisten in the proper environment. The answer, undoubtedly, with Purple Mountains, was, sadly, yes, yes it’s this good. Stunning songwriting, heart-wrenching on their own, even more so after Berman took his life shortly after its release. The track “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan” may be one of the greatest songs about New York City in a long while, pantheon-worthy. It’s all that good.
Ryley Walker & Charles Rumback — Little Common Twist
Ryley Walker is a goddamn puzzle. A 100-piece jigsaw that’s thrilling to piece together. And damn, doesn’t everything he puts his guitar to sound great. This year’s duo effort with drummer Charles Rumback is Walker at his best, the only-Ryley-Walker gorgeous playing, lovely long improvisation, playing off an equal partner, the two musicians locked in so well, you can feel the chemistry through your headphones. There are a lot of amazing guitarists out there, but there is only one Ryley Walker.
I also loved… (the rest of my top 25 in alphabetical order)
Listen to my top 25 playlist here.
Bedouine — Bird Songs of a Killjoy
Andrew Bird — My Finest Work YetJ.R. Bohannon — Dusk
Elephant9 — Psychedelic Backfire I & II
Joose Keskitalo — En lahde surussa
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — Fishing for Fishies
Kungens Man — Chef
Cass McCombs — Tip of the Sphere
Pipe-eye — Inside/Outside
Pom Poko — Birthday
Possum — Space Grade Assembly
Rose City Band — s/t
Skarbo Skulekorps — s/t
Thee Oh Sees — Face Stabber
Vula Viel — Do Not Be Afraid
Good shit (26–50 in alphabetical order)
Listen to my top 50 albums of 2019 here.
Altin Gun — Gece
Arp — Ensemble Live!
Black Flower — Future Flora
Jaimie Branch — FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise
Clandestine Quartet — One for the Fossa, Two for the Wolverine
The Comet Is Coming — The Afterlife
Kyle Craft — Showboat Honey
Madison Cunningham — Who Are You Now
E.B. The Younger — To Each His Own
Elder — The Gold & Silver Sessions
Frankie & the Witch Fingers — ZAM
Fruit Bats — Gold Past Life
Dave Harrington Group — Pure Imagination, No Country
Innercity Ensemble — IV
Kit Sebastian — Mantra Moderne
Michael Kiwanuka — KIWANUKA
Abigail Lapell — Getaway
Leafcutter John — Yes! Come Parade With Us
Levitation room — Headspace
Chris Lightcap — SuperBigmouth
Jonas Munk/Nicklas Sorensen — Always Already Here
Rozi Plain — What a Boost
Time Grove — More than One Thing
Tiny Ruins — Olympic Girls
Josephine Wiggs — We Fall
Honorable Mention (rounding out my top 100 in alphabetical order)
Listen to my top 100 of 2019 here.
75 Dollar Bill — I Was Real
Alameda 5 — Eurodrome
Alpenglow — Oceans in Between
The Bad Plus — Activate Infinity
Badge Epoque Ensemble — s/t
Devendra Banhart — Ma
Black Pumas — Black Pumas
The Budos Band — V
Rob Burger — The Grid
Cochemea — All My Relations
Rachael Dadd — FLUX
Allison de Groot/Tatiana Hargreaves — s/t
Death and Vanilla — Are You A Dreamer?
Rose Elinor Dougall — A New Illusion
Erin Durant — Islands
Ecstatic Vision — For the Masses
Eerie Wanda — Pet Town
Elkhorn — Elk Jam/Sun Cycle
Flaming Gods — Levitation
Chris Forsyth — All Time Present
Jake Xerxes Fussell — Out of Sight
Garcia Peoples — One Step Behind/Natural Facts
Rhiannon Giddens/Francesco Turrisi — there is no Other
Mary Halvorson/John Dieterich — A Tangle of Stars
Jesca Hoop — Stonechild
Jouis — Mind Bahn
Kacy & Clayton — Carrying On
Mary Lattimore/Mac McCaughan — New Rain Duets
Jenny Lewis — On the Line
Lizzo — Cuz I Love You
Mail the Horse — s/t
James MacArthur & the Head Gardeners — Intergalactic Sailor
Anna Mieke — Idle Mind
Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom — Glitter Wolf
Moon Bros. — The Easy Way is Hard Enough
Moon Goose — Source Code
Michael Nau — Less ready to Go
Okey Dokey — Tell All Your Friend
Omni — Networker
Paul & the Tall Trees — So Long
Pond — Tasmania
Pottery — №1
Quaker City Night Hawks — QCNH
Quantic — Atlantic Oscillations
The Quiet Temple — The Quiet Temple
Runa Gaman — s/t
Joe Russo — Pherboney
Joan Shelley — Like the River Loves the Sea
Trash Kit — Horizon
White Denim — Side Effects
