Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2019
Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly insecure about how closely my album top tens look like Anthony Fantano’s lists over at The Needle Drop. I’m a fan of the channel for sure, and though we disagree fairly often, if he rates something highly, I’ll happily give it a shot. Yet despite the fact that I read lots of critics on various sites and subscribe to many album review channels, my lists pretty much always look they were handcrafted by Fantano. So this year, I found more avenues of new music. Youtube channels, Bandcamp, Rate Your Music, Discogs forums. All kinds of shit.
I listened to more non-Fantano recommended albums in 2019 than I have in a very long time. My list still pretty much looks like it was made by Fantano.
What do I make of that? It’s hard to say. Maybe the solution is to be more upfront about our differences. There are many albums he loves that I can’t stand (Pure Comedy, for example) and vice versa. (Choose Your Weapon by Hiatus Kaiyote, an album he gave a 5/10, is one of my favorite of the decade.) But the most simple conclusion is to stop being so insecure. To remind myself, “You’re into similar stuff, there’s nothing you can do about that, and you should stop worrying and like whatever you like.” Easy, right?
Okay. 2019 music.
Another source of anxiety from these album lists is my want to have as much variance in genre as possible. Or at the very very least, I want some sort of balance between the hip hop albums and the not-hip hop albums. This year’s list, I came pretty close to accomplishing said balance. Six hip hop albums to four not-hip hop albums. (Seven if you count the runner-up.) It’s a surprising outcome to me because going into making this list, I thought it was going to be something more akin to eight rap albums. Maybe ten.
Some years, I place more of an emphasis on experimentation and sounds I’ve never heard before. Some years, I want old comforts, and 2019 was very much an old comforts year. That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy anything experimental. Trust me, there’s some weirdo shit on this list. However, Say “2019 albums” to me, and the first ones that come to mind are rap albums.
Even though I achieved my balance in spite of my own expectations, it still feels like a rap year. But hey, I like rap. And every other album on this list in general. In the end, that’s all that really matters.
Runner-Up: Tyler, The Creator, Igor
I’m still a Flower Boy guy.
I don’t mean that as some grand proclamation of why IGOR sucks or anything like that. IGOR is an incredible album in just about every sense of the word. It’s just the shortest way I could think of as to how to explain why I couldn’t sustain as much of a passion for it as a lot of people rightfully have.
Unlike a lot of hardcore rap fans upon release, I didn’t have any problems with the vocals. Maybe they were a little grating at first, but I got used to them quickly, and more importantly, I think they’re integral to why the album works as well as it does.
My “issue” really isn’t an issue. My issue is that the Neptunes inspired jazzy neo soul on Flower Boy speaks to me on a primal emotional level. Those are some of the sounds that made me fall in love with music, so play me anything like it, you’ve got my attention hook, line, and sinker. IGOR doesn’t outright abandon that sound, but it definitely takes a backseat to new styles. And that’s cool!
In fact, even though my heart still lies with Flower Boy, in a weird way, going so far in a different direction is a large part of why I like this album so much to begin with. Consider: Flower Boy comes out, and it’s the the most critically beloved album he’s ever released. (Or at least it seems to be.) Even more than the shock rap that made him famous in the first place.
Most artists would return to the well. To try to evolve the sound that made people fall in love with him all over again. Instead, he put out a melody driven album that mostly features him singing with his vocals pitched up. In hindsight, it’s not a complete one eighty of Flower Boy. But it’s close, and it’s a bold move to say the least.
It’s also, above all else, an incredible heartbreak album. IGOR features some of Tyler’s most affective songwriting, some of his most interesting work as a producer and composer, and some of his most powerful aesthetic and artistic choices. It may dabble in less of my beloved jazzy neo soul sounds. But it has everything else I could possibly want.
Favorite Songs: “EARFQUAKE,” “A BOY IS A GUN,” “GONE, GONE/THANK YOU”
10. Slauson Malone, A Quiet Farwell, 2016–2018
It is, in fact “Farwell” and not “Farewell.” I’ve been saying “farewell” all year.
Now then, there’s a song in the back half of A Quiet Farwell called “The Flying Africans board mothership Zong! to colonize the new nubian planet called X “The World laughs as it turns another degree, hotter”.” (The names of the songs on this album are certainly a thing.) It begins with an extremely pitched down sample of someone whispering, “Right… now. Right… now.”
“I know that sample!” I thought. But I couldn’t remember where it was from, and it was driving me insane. Over the next few days, I would google the phrase and try other various methods of identification, but to no avail. Then I was working on the Nina Simone In Concert article and I once again listened to “Pirate Jenny,” the source of the sample, for the trillionth time. “Of fucking course!” I exclaimed out loud with my head hung in shame.
Maybe I’m not as devout a Nina Simone fan as I thought I was. Maybe it took me too long to revisit In Concert. Maybe this is just a simple example of failing to notice something right in front of me. But I think it has something to do with one of the album’s defining qualities.
Earlier in the album, there’s a song called, “WON’T BLEED ME: The Sequel.” There’s a quick strum of a guitar sample, then Slauson (or at least I assume it’s Slauson) starts singing, “They bled my momma/They bled my poppa/They bled my brotha/They bled my sista” and in between each line, a heavily distorted voice kicks in and sings, “Won’t bleed me.”
Upon hearing this song, I was immediately brought back to senior year of college where I watched Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song for a class and heard the original version.
The original song is fast paced, lively, and filled with chanting and call and response. Slauson’s version is slow, melancholic, and lonely.
The defining quality I was referring to was this: Slauson Malone has the ability to take familiar sounds from all over the cultural spectrum, be it famous live jazz performances or songs from ‘70s arthouse films, and make them sound completely alien. Hip hop, in a lot of ways, is a genre about taking the old and using it to create something new. But A Quiet Farwell goes far beyond that. It’s an album about taking the old and bending and contorting it so much that it becomes something otherworldly and beautiful.
It’s a short experience, and it’s one of those albums that’s more enjoyable to listen to as a whole versus any of the individual songs on their own. But it’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Plenty have sampled a known quantity and made it sound weird, but rarely do they go this far beyond the pale. At least not in hip hop. In fact, one could argue that it goes so far beyond traditional sampling that it might not even be hip hop. But I said one could argue this point. Not me.
A Quiet Farwell is an incredible album on many sonic levels, but a small part of why I love it is because of what it represents. The 2010s has been a decade where hip hop’s done a lot of evolving, and I like that in some circles, things are getting weirder. Let’s hope for me of this weirdo stuff in the decade to come.
Favorite Songs: “King Sisyphus of the Atlantic,” “The Flying Africans board mothership Zong! to colonize the new nubian planet called X “The World laughs as it turns another degree, hotter”,” “Off Me! “The Wake” Pt. 1 & 2”
9. Lingua Ignota, CALIGULA
Earlier in the month, for the sake of thoroughness and taking list making way too seriously, I was running through this list with a friend. He was a fan of IGOR and he hadn’t gotten to A Quiet Farwell yet. Then we got to CALIGULA and he said he hadn’t heard of it.
“Shit,” I thought, “Now I have to try to explain it.”
CALIGULA is an album that doesn’t really lend itself well to the notion of “genre,” or at least any of the ones in the greater music listening consciousness. There’s even some acknowledgement of its undefinability on the album’s Bandcamp page. “Eschewing and disavowing genre all together, Hayter builds her own world.” (Lingua Ignota is the stage name of Kristin Hayter.) If you look down at the tags, it says “experimental,” “retribution,” and “United States.” While all three are accurate, the first two stunningly so, they’re not particularly helpful in describing the album. In Fantano’s review, the genres he gives in the description are “neoclassical darkwave” and “death industrial.” Definitely more specific. But I barely know what those terms mean.
So here’s what I ended up saying to my friend.
“It’s like if you took the dialogue from a fantasy novel that’s meant to sound badass, but instead, you made it sound fucking terrifying.”
It’s a description that did well in a pinch, even though there’s no genre to be found anywhere in that word salad. Not that there needs to be one. I just wished I could’ve thought of something that actually describes the sound and not just the lyrics.
But also, there’s a much darker aspect of the album that description doesn’t convey. I hadn’t bothered to research anything about Lingua before making that comment. I have now, and if I had earlier, I’d have chosen a much different tone.
Lingua Ignota, Kristin Hayter, is a survivor of abuse. In fact, she is a survivor of a variety of prolonged abuse of all shapes and forms, as well as a survivor of severe anorexia and presumably other complications that come with that baggage. In a Vice interview where she talks about all this stuff, she describes channeling her recovery into her art.
“Not ascribing to traditional models of healing such as gentleness and self-love has allowed me to be very raw and aggressive in my recounting of abuse through art. I think that's the part of it that maybe touches other survivors: mine isn't the way we're accustomed to addressing such things. I was reading several books about surviving abuse and they're basically like, 'be nice and get a hobby.' I feel like this enforces patriarchal models of civilized femininity. Instead, I come out and scream at you—'BURN EVERYTHING TRUST NO ONE KILL YOURSELF' and 'REPAY EVIL WITH EVIL.’”
That feeling that may have risen in your stomach when you read that? Whatever it may be, that’s how it feels to listen to this album.
CALIGULA is one of the most profoundly uncomfortable listening experiences I’ve ever had. And yet, I still find myself returning to it fairly frequently. Not the whole album. That I can’t handle. But certain songs. There’s a righteousness to the anger Lingua puts forward on this album. Disconcerting? Absolutely. But undeniably powerful.
And as to what this album sounds like, well… the more I think about it, the more “retribution” actually works.
Favorite Songs: “DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR,” “IF THE POISON WON’T TAKE YOU MY DOGS WILL,” “I AM THE BEAST”
8. Otoboke Beaver, ITEKOMA HITS
And now we move from musical assault to… more musical assault! Thank you, Fantano!
Honestly, I’m in a bit of a weird place with this album. On one hand, it’s the non-hip hop album I returned the most in 2019. I listen to it when I’m walking to the grocery store. I listen to it while doing chores around the apartment. I listen to it in the car. I’ll listen to it pretty much whenever and wherever.
On the other hand, here I am at the end of the year, and I find myself with little to say about it.
ITEKOMA HITS, to me, is an experience of the body. It’s the best punk rock freak out album of the year, and despite how much time I’ve spent with it, I’ve never actually thought about it that hard. I put it on, I enjoy it going hard as fuck for its barely thirty minute runtime, then I’m done. It’s an ephemeral experience, and that’s part of why I love it so much.
That’s the rub of this album. It’s incredibly abrasive and fun, but the way I enjoy it does not lend itself well to album of the year articles. I do, however, want to clarify something. Part of the joy of ITEKOMA HITS is that it’s ephemeral. Ephemeral, however, does not mean disposable.
ITEKOMA HITS is technically a compilation album. Some of the material is new, some of it’s from older EPs, and some of it is old songs re-recorded specifically for this release. Despite the vaguely hodgepodge-y nature of which it was put together, it’s clear that throughout their time as a band, they have a clear sense of direction and an even clearer sound: Hit the gas and never stop.
It’s assaultive and transient. But only because it was designed that way.
Favorite Songs: “Datsu: Hikage no onna,” “Bakuro book,” “Don’t light my fire”
7. Ana Frango Eléctrico, Little Electric Chicken Heart
I’m having a weird issue with my laptop at the moment. This context matters, I swear.
The issue is, essentially, that my computer will start playing any one of a variety of media as long as I have my earbuds plugged into my laptop’s headphone jack. It really depends on what’s open. If it’s Youtube, it’ll randomly stop or start if I move the computer or nudge the earbuds. It’s the same issue with Netflix and Hulu. Even iTunes. (I haven’t upgraded to Catalina yet, and I might not ever.) I haven’t figured out if it’s a hardware problem with my laptop or some sort of issue with my specific earbuds. It’s annoying, but it’s not that big a deal.
One night, I was rewatching La Vie En Rose (which we’ll talk about later) and airplaying it onto my TV. I got to a scene where Edith is riding high on her success and having a lavish dinner party. Lots of wine, lots of jokes, and this particularly jaunty tune playing in the background.
When the movie transitioned into the next scene, the song was still playing. “Odd choice.” I remember thinking to myself. Of course, as you have assuredly figured out, the song wasn’t actually in the movie. It was my headphone jack problem rearing its ugly head again. The song that was playing over that dinner party was “Se no cinema” by Ana Frango Eléctrico.
Now, ultimately, this is a story about me being an idiot. But it also demonstrates the quality that I appreciate in Little Electric Chicken Heart the most.
That dinner scene in question is one of the most openly joyous scenes in the movie. Life, unfortunately, wasn’t particularly kind to Edith a lot of the time. But the dinner party scene is one where we get to see her larger-than-life personality without any of the consequences. Granted, part of the purpose of the scene is meant to underscore her vulnerability to the substance abuse she’d later go through. After all, there’s a lot of wine in the scene. But it’s mainly a scene of merriment and laughs, and it’s a good time. So of course “Se no cinema” would fit into that scene.
I don’t know how the lyrics translate to english, but based purely on the music and the mood, it sounds like I’m at a party. A particular kind of party with mainly European intellectuals in the ‘60s, but a party nonetheless, and I’m having a good time at this party.
So far, this list has been dominated by abrasion. Heartbreak. Hyper experimentation. Abuse and violence. Punk craziness. Little Electric Chicken Heart is the first source of warmth on this list, and it was a source of calm ever since I listened to it back in the fall. The old school party of “Se no cinema.” The slow romance of “Chocolate.” The coziness of “Torturadores,” even though I can guess what that word translates to based on how it looks. I am merely a dumb American.
The horns and the guitars on this album. I could melt.
Of course, there’s the possibility that were I to read a translation of the lyrics, I’d find more sorrow and a lot less calm. But somehow, I doubt it.
2020 resolution: Listen to more Brazilian music.
Favorite Songs: “Promessa e previsões,” “Chocolate,” “Torturadores”
6. Maxo Kream, Brandon Banks
Sometimes, I want my hip hop ignorant.
Songs about drugs. Songs about sex. Songs about violence. It’s not that I revel in the misery of others, particularly that of the black community. Far from it. But I just enjoy the context of where it comes from. America created some of the worst conditions in the country for the people who make this music, and I love listening to them throw it back in America’s face. Here’s the embodiment of everything you fear, comfortable listener at home, and it’s your fault this exists in the first place. Of course, this isn’t the reason why all of it exists. Sometimes ignorant bullshit is just ignorant bullshit. But when done right, there’s a rebellious spirit to it that’s always been more powerful to me than punk rock.
Sometimes, however, I want some hip hop for adults.
Whenever I read or listen to another argument about the ranking of Jay-Z albums, I always do my own in my head, and every time I do, 4:44 creeps up a little higher. People get older, they’ve lived more of life, and they have wisdom to share. Of course, hip hop has always been a source of youthful energy and music for the party. But rappers getting older is an exciting proposition to me because it injects a new kind of authenticity into the rap sphere. Some rappers have done all the stuff the youth are talking about in their songs. Now what?
Brandon Banks is a perfect balance of these two hemispheres. It’s an album about crime and violence, but it’s also an album about struggle and family. There’s no attempt to glorify any of the stuff he’s talking about. He’s just telling you how it is.
Early on in the album, there’s a song called “8 Figures.” More skeptical listeners, such as I, looked at that name and assumed it was going to be another song where a rapper brags about his wealth. But that’s yet another reason why we don’t judge songs until after we listen to them, because it’s actually a song about the lack of it. “You ain't really gettin' money 'til you make eight figures,” he raps. There’s having a lot of money, and there’s keeping it. These two concepts don’t jive with each other, particularly in the music industry, particularly in America, particularly if you’re black. Maybe, just maybe, these rappers aren’t as rich as they say they are, and maybe the reason for that is darker than most of us want to examine.
The very next song, “She Live,” is a straight up sex song with Megan Thee Stallion. It’s equally as great.
You may have read that and thought that these two songs sound contradictory. But they’re not. It just feels like two facets of who Maxo is. Sometimes he tells you that he wants to fuck somebody. Sometimes he tells you about how the American criminal justice system tears families apart and ruins lives.
Hip hop is obsessed with this notion of “realness.” Some artists feel “real” and some don’t. I don’t think we’ll ever really know what distinguishes one from the other, but Maxo sure as hell feels like the former.
Also, “Meet Again” is a definite contender for my favorite song of the year.
Favorite Songs: “Meet Again,” “Bissonnet,” “Dairy Ashford Bastard”
5. The Comet Is Coming, Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
I sincerely doubt jazz artists feel this way, but from a critical outsider’s perspective, it feels to me like jazz has been living in the shadow of The Epic ever since it came out in 2015.
I don’t mean that in the sense that there’s been a million copy cats of The Epic since. Truth be told, I don’t listen to nearly enough current jazz to be able to say, but somehow I doubt that everyone is recording three hour jazz epics when recording one forty minute album probably eats enough time, money, and creative energy to begin with. I’m also not saying that there hasn’t been any truly great jazz albums since. Sons of Kemet’s Your Queen Is a Reptile came damn close to making my list last year, and this year, it was almost Yazz Ahmed’s Polyhymnia.
What I mean is that if someone says “2010s jazz” to me, and probably most critics and music lovers, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Kamasi Washington’s The Epic. Okay, if you consider Flying Lotus jazz, maybe one of his albums. But even in that scenario, it’s probably still The Epic for a lot of people.
Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery, to me, is the first album that indicates that maybe I’m ready for something to come along and take The Epic’s spot on my mental jazz throne.
Much like ITEKOMA HITS, it’s an album of the body, and in this case, of the mind. Many reviews I’ve seen/read talk about this album’s ability to take you to a place, much in that particular way jazz can evoke the cosmos. Coltrane and Sun Ra. “A journey through the mind” and all that stuff. I can confirm that to be true about this album.
But to try to describe it is pointless. You’re just going to have to go there and see for yourself. Shabaka Hutchings and Kamasi Washington. What’s going on with saxophonists these days?
Favorite Songs: “Because The End Is Really The Beginning,” “Summon The Fire,” “Super Zodiac”
4. JPEGMAFIA, All My Heroes Are Cornballs
I bought the album on Bandcamp, so that’s the album cover I got. Also, as far as this list is concerned, it’s hip hop from here on in.
Now, I’m going to start this write-up of by engaging in one of Peggy’s favorite pastimes. I’m going to compare him to Death Grips. (For those of you who have not engaged with JPEGMAFIA’s music or have read the multiple interviews where he tells people to stop comparing him to Death Grips, that was not a serious comment.)
Just to be clear, I think the two have very little in common. Lyrically, Peggy goes for more concrete directness while Death Grips deals in abstraction and evocation. They don’t sound alike either, except for a surface level sound are two, other than a track on All My Heroes Are Cornballs called “JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT” that I’m pretty sure is supposed to sarcastically comment on the comparisons between the two. Death Grips songs are meant to be performed by a band and JPEGMAFIA’s aren’t. Peggy’s production fits slightly more in the traditional hip hop paradigm. (Emphasis on “slightly.”) Death Grips doesn’t. The differences between the two splinter further from there.
The big thing they do have in common, however, is not only aggression, but how they’ve found new ways to channel it. Both have the ability to try out new sounds while still being able to produce something one would call a “Death Grips song” or a “JPEGMAFIA song.”
I bring up all this up because I think with All My Heroes Are Cornballs, those comparisons truly end. We used to talk about their similarities. It’s contrasts from this point forward.
One of the big contrasts is the music itself, mainly that of all the things I didn’t know I needed, I never thought a melodic JPEGMAFIA album would be one of them. Not that there isn’t melody to be found in the Death Grips library. But I’ve never heard MC Ride truly sing, and I doubt I ever will. On top of that, All My Heroes Are Cornballs goes in some surprisingly slower and mellower directions. The name “BabyBitchTearGas” sounds like some hardcore manly man shit, but it’s actually a surprisingly soulful downtempo cover of “No Scrubs” by TLC.
There’s also another big contrast to be found in the lyrical content. One could argue that Death Grips do, in fact, show vulnerability from time to time in their own way. But again, they’re never direct in their lyrics, and I’ve never heard anything from them like, say, “Free the Frail,” a song about losing control of your sense of identity after gaining the following you’ve been striving to build your whole career.
None of this should suggest, however, that All My Heroes Are Cornballs is any less aggressive. Peggy does, after all, say at one point, “One shot turn Steve Bannon into Steve Hawking” and there’s… pretty much the entirety of the final track of the album. On top of that, there’s still abrasiveness to be found all over the production. The good ol’ stuff is still there. But there’s also a new form of aggression to be found. It’s just that this time, the target is those who try to box Peggy in as a purely MC Ride style agro-rapper. To those people, he’s made an album where he sings just as much as he raps, if not more so. Another theme this year.
I know I said that the Death Grips comparisons should end here, but now that I think about it, they now have one more thing in common. For a period, I was worried about the sustainability of Death Grips, but they’ve proven time and time again that they can and will switch up their sound and evolve. With All My Heroes Are Cornballs, Peggy’s done the exact same thing.
Favorite Songs: “All My Heroes Are Cornballs,” “Free The Frail,” “Papi I Missed U” (Or “🥺” if you bought it on Bandcamp.)
3. Quelle Chris, Guns
There’s a certain kind of underground rap fan who tends to view mainstream rappers as all the same. Mumble rappers making party songs and Drake style rappers making Drake style raps. It seems like an immutable law of hip hop fandom that the obnoxious indie fan will forever thumb their nose at the rapper de jour. But do you think it’s the other way around as well?
What’s the stereotype of the underground artist to the mainstream fan? Is it the posturing New York battle MC or the weirdo sci-fi rapper or the perpetually mad artist who only makes music about how fucked up the music industry is, particularly in hip hop?
It’s been on my mind because I finally get to talk about Quelle Chris. Read a review of a Quelle Chris album, and the word “weird” will inevitably be thrown in somewhere. There’s been this attempt to frame him as some sort of bizarro indie rapper, and I always found this odd because as far as indie rappers are concerned, he always struck me as a much more approachable one.
It’s not that he has a mainstream style of rapping. He very much doesn’t. You don’t always know the flow that’s coming, and once you do, he raps it in a raspy low voice that very much doesn’t fit an environment that favors a predictable cadence and a higher pitch. And it’s not that he has a particularly mainstream style of production either. (Though he’s a vastly underrated in that department.) His sound is a little glitchy. A little staticky. A little hard to pin down, other than the general sense of it being the kind of sound that can thrive in the indie sphere.
But I didn’t say he struck me as mainstream. I said he struck me as approachable. What sets Quelle apart from a lot of indie rappers is a certain sense of relatability and, above all else, a big heart.
Let's take some songs from the album. “Guns” is a song about not only literal guns, but the people who purchase and use them. It’s a song about the cycle of gun violence in this country. A symbol of patriotism being used to commit horrific acts of violence towards your neighbors. People buying guns for safety only to wind up causing more harm to themselves and others. People feeling the need to have to buy a gun for safety in the first place.
“Mind Ya Bidness” is a song about being harassed in public for being black. “It’s the Law (Farewell Goodbye Addio, Uncle Tom)” is a song about how the reverence of our society allows us to be blind to the atrocities of America’s past and present, as well as how the titular laws are tipped against black people. Racism and violence in day-to-day American life is a theme that comes up over and over again.
However, as I said, Quelle has a big heart. Guns is an album about literal guns, as well as how everything and anything can be weaponized against you. But it’s also about those moments where you can escape that feeling of everything crashing on your head.
“Straight Shot” is a rare injection of hope in bleak times. A song about seeking some sense of truth in the bullshit, but remaining level headed about the process of getting through it all. “You, Me & Nobody Else” is one of the most purely romantic songs of the year. “WYRM” finds Quelle ruminating on the impact of his life and his work. “Obamacare” and “Box of Wheaties” are some of the most confident brag raps of the year.
At times, Guns is a bleak album. But it’s not so bleak that you can’t relate to it, nor will it put you off. And even if it does, there’s also an incredible sense of tenderness on this album. Quelle wears his heart on his sleeves, as he always does and always has.
It made me so happy that I could finally write about him and his work on one of these lists.
Favorite Songs: “Guns,” “PSA Drugfest 2003 (Sleeveless Minks),” “Straight Shot”
2. slowthai, Nothing Great About Britain
There’s another album that came out earlier this year called PSYCHODRAMA by a rapper named Dave. It caused a brief stir in the hip hop world because it’s a project about mental health, the concept being that the album is a giant literal therapy session where he talks about such topics as his failures with relationships, his brothers’ prison sentences (including one serving a life sentence), and the overall impacts of growing up poor in Britain under the general cloud of depression.
Though the trend towards rapping about mental health has been a welcome trend happening for years, for many, PSYCHODRAMA, was a bit of a revelation. I don’t have the admiration for this album that a lot of people do, but I fully understand why it does it for so many people, I’m happy it’s as successful as it was, and I look forward to whatever Dave does next.
There was, however, another British hip hop that came out in 2019 that, in my opinion, dealt with many of the same issues a little more effectively. That album was Nothing Great About Britain by slowthai. Not that we should compare these projects just because both rappers happen to be english, but Nothing Great About Britain stands out for a number of reasons. Besides better production and a more unique style of rapping, for me, it came down to one simple point. PSYCHODRAMA tells. Nothing Great About Britain shows.
On the surface, “Doorman” is a song about a fling with a wealthy woman. But it’s also, in its own way, a song about the maddening effects of wealth inequality. “Doorman” doesn’t tell a straight narrative so much as juxtapose scenes with this woman and getting really fucked up on a night at the town, the production adding to the sense of chaos and strife. Wealth, it seems, is almost inherently violent.
“Gorgeous” is a song about slowthai’s childhood in Northhampton and all the people he grew up with. Though not all the memories he talks about are necessarily bad, the lyrics and the beat ooze the kind of melancholic nostalgia that fills your soul when you miss something, even if it wasn’t the best of times. It’s a lot of stories of boredom, youth, and tragedy. Shooting at pigeons on the church with an airsoft rifle. Letting his friend Tony off the hook for stealing his Yu-Gi-Oh cards because he knows he can’t handle the usual repercussions. Weed. Lots and lots of weed. Getting into fights and, as the chorus informs us, getting arrested with his friends. I’m sure the criminal justice system is easier when you’ve got a friend to go through it with.
“Crack” deals in a familiar metaphor, that of comparing a love interest to a drug. The difference, however, is that love for slowthai is more like a literal drug in that it’s self-destructive, his reliance on it turns everything particularly toxic, and it ends poorly. In the end, one has to wonder if the metaphor isn’t a little more literal.
In a sense, slowthai reminds me of what was special about the early work of Eminem. Granted, slowthai isn’t as big on the technical skill and he doesn’t partake of horrorcore or homophobia. But I never thought that was why people related to Em. What made him stand out was that he touched the open wound of growing up poor in America in a way that no artist had in a long time. He rapped about being trapped in a cycle of poverty and self-destruction, and how that cycle only leads to misery and slow death.
In Em’s music, he put us in the trailer parks and the public schools of Detroit. In Nothing Great About Britain, we’re in a shitty pub in Northhampton, and we’re about to take a bottle to the head.
It may seem like a grimy album on the surface. But in its own quiet way, Nothing Great About Britain is one of the saddest albums of the year.
Favorite Songs: “Doorman,” “Gorgeous,” “Toaster” (or the actual video for “Toaster.”)
1. Little Simz, GREY AREA
Last year, I gave my number one slot to OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES by SOPHIE. It’s an album I love deeply, and one I still return to on a fairly frequent basis. But it’s also an album way outside of my comfort zones of hip hop, soul, and jazz. Not that this is a problem. The novelty of loving new styles of music wore off a long time ago. But as I said in the introduction, 2019 was a year about old comforts, and GREY Area has everything I could possibly want in a hip hop album.
And now we run into a problem. You see, there’s a format thing for these album lists that comes in handy if I’m coming up short of things to say or I’m just feeling lazy. Select a quality you really like about an album, and give a few of examples of songs that fulfill that quality. Then choose a conflicting quality, and give a few more song examples, and then talk about how these qualities provide a singular experience.
The “problem” with doing that with GREY Area is that every song is an example of every kind of quality one could desire.
You want flawless flow and no bullshit bars? Listen to any song on this album. You want introspective lyrics? Listen to any song on this album. (Okay, maybe not “Offence.” But then again, I don’t think confidence and self-reflection are mutually exclusive concepts.) Want political content? How about quality production? Or live instrumentation? Or musical evolution or emotional catharsis? Basically, any song on this album will do. It’s all things to all rap fans.
So the real problem is one I’ve talked about before. When you love everything about an album, it’s hard to focus on any one thing to talk about. I knew this was my album of the year from pretty much the moment I listened to it, and I don’t want to write a simple end of the year piece about it. I want to write a full article. Maybe two. Maybe one for each track.
Perhaps I’m incompetent. This album deserves a lot more than I’m giving it, and I realize I’m not really giving a reason why it’s my number one spot. But I have too much to say about GREY Area, and I honestly don’t know where to start. GREY Area is only thirty six minutes and you should be listening to it right now.
Between Little Simz, slowthai, and The Comet is Coming, I’d like some of whatever was in the water in the UK in 2019. Fuck me.
Favorite Song: All of them.
Honorable Mentions
Alex Cameron, Miami Memories
Anderson .Paak, Ventura
Ariana Grande, thank u, next
Big Thief, Two Hands
Big Thief, U.F.O.F.
Billy Woods & Kenny Segal, Hiding Places
BROCKHAMPTON, GINGER
CHAI, Punk
clipping., There Existed An Addiction To Blood
Danny Brown, uknowhatimsayin¿
Denzel Curry, ZUU
Dorian Electra, Flamboyant
Emily King, Scenery
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Bandana
GoldLink, Diaspora
Hobo Johnson, The Fall of Hobo Johnson
IDK, Is He Real?
Jamila Woods, LEGACY! LEGACY!
Jessica Pratt, Quiet Signs
Kero Kero Bonito, Civilisation I
Kirin J Callinan, Return to Center
Little Brother, May the Lord Watch
MAVI, let the sun talk
Nilüfer Yanya, Miss Universe
Von Pea, City for Sale
Rapsody, Eve
Solange, When I Get Home
Westside Gunn, Hitler Wears Hermes 7
Weyes Blood, Titanic Rising
Yazz Ahmed, Polyhymnia
Will Listen To Someday
Pretty sure I got everything, but there’s always something I never knew about that I’ll find later.
