The Best Albums of 2019, #20-01

#20: (Sandy) Alex G – House Of Sugar

Irrepressible, off-the-wall, and more than a little absurd, indie musician (Sandy) Alex G has made a career out of two things since dropping his debut in 2014: being as prolific as Ty Segall and being even more willing to play whatever the hell has come into his head in the last five minutes. House of Sugar marks his first album not put together in his bedroom but it keeps the manic, playlist-on-shuffle feel of his previous music. There’s just MORE of it – more instruments, more voices, more ideas.

The 100 Best Albums of 2019, #40-21

#40: Billie Eilish – When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?

Teen pop phenoms are almost always obnoxious – Donny Osmond and Justin Beiber were both awful in their own special ways. 2019’s teen pop phenom, Billie Eilish, manages to avoid this through the virtue of being really ridiculously good. Someone online – I forget who – called her ASMR pop and there’s a lot to that, really. Her style is like she took the mic into her closet and whispered her darkest secrets into it; these Whisper confessions were then laced over solid arrangements that both embrace and subvert pop conventions. An insane debut for a 17 year old, and a harbinger of big things to come.

The 100 Best Albums of 2019, #60-41

#60: Hot Chip – A Bath Full Of Ecstasy

Hot Chip have put out their fair share of mediocre songs, but they’ve somehow avoided putting out a bad album. A Bath Full Of Ecstasy follows in that tradition; it presents a series of solid dance floor grooves that have the usual dark concerns laced under it – abandonment, the absurdity of existence, uncertainty of faith. Like the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode before them, Hot Chip have always known that there is more to the club than escapist bliss.

The 100 Best Albums of 2019, #80-61

#80: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Fishing For Fishies

Album #1 from the absurdly prolific Aussie psych band takes a dive back into the feel-good post-psych of the Seventies and reinvents the band’s sound for the umpteenth time in order to be a feel-good prog-funk band. What if Chilliwack was actually good? Gizzard answers the question no one was asking.

Also, uh, that album cover.

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Chronicling the Third Post-War Generation

best records 2019