Somehow, someway, we’ve reached the midpoint of the 2020s. We’ve all lived through it, so I don’t need to break down what it’s been like. I’ll just say that if this hasn’t been the most turbulent, spiritually damaging stretch of five years in your life, then buddy, I do not envy the way your life was prior to 2020.
Albums-wise, this half decade has provided us music freaks with some fantastic tunes. I’ll say that based off this list alone that 2022 is one of the best years of music I’ve ever live through. You’ll find a wide array of genres and voices present below. If you’re familiar with Warm Visions, hopefully a lot of these records are familiar to you as well. I have my favorites and I hold them tight!
(If you’re curious, I made one of these in the midpoint of the 2010s as well. Wild to think that I wrote this 10 years ago at this point now. You can read that HERE.)
100. CORRIDOR – Mimi (2024)
Archival film footage of a famous skier attempting to break a world record of jumping over the palatial mountain resort of the region, but after enlisting the help of a local astronomer to lower the gravity, the skier launches themselves into the atmosphere, never to be seen again.
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One of the more refreshing recent post punk records. An album that feels like it’s both molding and singed at the edges, but letting spring breezes in through an open window in the middle. Shout out to Quebec.
99. YO LA TENGO – This Stupid World (2023)
Instead of going to bed early to rest yourself before a morning flight, you decide to stay up and wear yourself down by practicing hobbies, scrolling the internet, and getting inside your own head about what you’ve read on the news and what your friends are going through.
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They’re icons, they’re legends, and you could never. YLT brings the noise back on This Stupid World, an album that upon immediate listen revealed new classics in their live repertoire, along with others I’d be happily surprised to hear played out live. The way I write about YLT now really exposes me as a Phish fan-like fan. It’s all about the live set.
98. JOHN CARROLL KIRBY – Septet (2021)
A robed wizard with a long stocking cap sits in a California laundromat, flips a quarter in the air and casts spells thru the slanted mirror ceiling while waiting for their laundry to be done.
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Get sent to another dimension with seriously humid jazz funk. This is some sweaty music right here, but in a way that makes you imagine a screened-in deck, nestled amongst wide monstera fronds dripping with natural condensation, five large oscillating fans circulating air as a skilled band plays the late afternoon away.
97. FOR THOSE I LOVE – For Those I Love (2021)
Being ground into dust by grief then slowly becoming more hydrated back into a human being as time passes.
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An honest love letter to a friend departed from this realm, with heartbreakingly real grief juxtaposed with euphoric fireworks grown from years of friendship past, rocketing off into the air with joy. A night of remembrance with the lads, a life of memories extended far past their end date.
96. ROCHELLE JORDAN – Play With The Changes (2021)
Trying to make your way home in a futuristic, neon-lit cityscape through underground pipeline raves, Akira biker gang fights and gravity-bending fashion shows.
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Being a voice of so many great electronic records of the 2010s, Rochelle Jordan shows that a full album with her at the vocal helm is undoubtedly fantastic. Hit after hit of stellar electronic R&B that could act as a nice time capsule to the mid-10s sound but also feels timeless with plenty of futuristic-sounding moments.
95. KA – Descendants of Cain (2020)
The centuries-running meeting of the oldest book club in the big city, discussing the words of scholars of the past and the future and equating them to the perils of everyday life.
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One of the best rappers of the last few years, Ka continued doing what he did best here: pulling upon biblical references and other historical texts to pull comparisons to the harsh world we live in today. RIP to the goat.
94. PALM – Nicks And Grazes (2022)
Getting really nervous and overwhelmed by the really intense rules and lore of the neighborhood kids’ fantasy roleplay games on the cul-de-sac playground, especially once they started talking about human sacrifices.
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Experimental rock group Palm’s swan song sends out the raucous group the only way they know how: by sounding like they’re actively tearing the record apart as they go. Punching holes in walls, tearing up the carpet, knocking down support posts, comically deleting large chunks of infrastructure with photoshop tools, resulting in beautiful, mangled rubble origami.
93. NUBYA GARCIA – Source (2020)
A generation of genius, prodigal children beyond their years begin solving complex world problems and develop psychic powers they ultimately use for good in their communities.
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The seeds were planted with a few records in 2019, but 2020 felt like an explosion of exciting jazz from the UK, with Nubya Garcia and Source at the forefront. Absurd levels of talent in the performances, and an air of optimism cutting through dark clouds bathed throughout.
92. KIM GORDON – The Collective (2024)
Radiation from cellphone batteries or satellites or whatever we were worried about 20 years ago is true and our faces will soon turn into red, blistered, weeping husks as we scroll for a third hour straight.
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Four decades into her career and Kim Gordon is still finding ways to both subvert expectations and break some bones while she’s at it.
91. A.S.O. – a.s.o. (2023)
A y2k-era spy sits inside their home, bored, during a rainy night. Hanging upside-down off their bed as shadowy streaks from their bay window run down their profile, sighing impatiently that no new assignments, nor eHarmony replies, have popped into their inbox.
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Not to boil a.s.o.’s sound down to purely comparisons, but they do the rare thing of successfully condensing the appeal of bands like Mazzy Star, Portishead and Cocteau Twins into one project. A real 90s dream record living and thriving in the 2020s, sounding fresh on first listen and well-loved on subsequent ones. A really impressive debut, too.
90. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR – “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” (2024)
No description as of 7 June 2025 62,614 dead. Free Palestine.
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As I write this, the Freedom Flotilla, a ship under the flag of the UK, full of international passengers set to bring aid to Gaza, was just intercepted by Israel and as of what we know right now, the crew has only been kidnapped. A potential war crime in the making (among many others) and the world is silent. At the same time, protests rattle Los Angeles and ICE, with the president wanting to call in the national guard. And people say that GY!BE’s music isn’t political. Kiss my fucking ass, bootlickers.
89. DERADOORIAN – Find the Sun (2020)
Entering the sacred temple and releasing yourself from your tumultuous earthly desires to accept a life of transcendence.
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A murky, krauty trip to the mystical past. Like, way past. I’m talking the times of wizards, castles, golems, and journeying warriors. A dark, creeping energy soaks through the fibers of this record, whether it be through its instrumentation, or through its impregnable shifting moods, moving from a groovy underground bar band, to a knotted witch ritual, to a solemn prayer. Not many records this decade set such a defined scene like this one, which is how it’s stuck out to me so much the last five years.
88. VANISHING TWIN – Ookii Gekkou (2021)
Space time-morphed crew members of a lost 50s space exploration conduct experiments on rogue matter caught in their tractor beam and provide a transmission hub for incoming intergalactic correspondence.
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Soupy, humid psych pop that, like my little description implies, has encountered some wacky radiation and has turned an otherwise benign mission into deep space into one that melts the fabric of time and space. A grand theater of the absurd and the interplanetary.
87. ANDREA – Due In Color (2023)
Sunshine cutting through the dense haze of an uncontrolled urban sprawl, shining into slivers of windows exposed to the sky and into the grates above bustling, subterranean marketplaces.
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A heady record that both explodes from the club, into the sky where peaceful clouds lazily drift past. Utilizing live drums, Turin producer Andrea’s blend of drum & bass swerves from realms of UK bass to blissful ambient explorations. This comes via Skee Mask’s Ilian Tape label, so you know too that there’s also a required depth of the soundstage of these records that others can’t even compare to.
86. EN ATTENDANT ANA – Principia (2023)
A romantic thief steals jewels and flowers from the richest moguls in the city and hands them out to their flash-in-the-pan flings they meet while prowling in the shadows of the city.
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One of the best jangle rock records from the last five years, and frankly of the 21st century. The band’s French background brings in figments of classical chanson to co-exist with post-punky noise breakdowns and krautrock clinics, boiling down into tightly-wound springtraps of hooky melodies and grooves, ensnaring you for repeated listens.
85. KASSIE KRUT – Kassie Krut EP (2024)
Putting in all the cheat codes in an open-world game, allowing your character to rampage through the game with supersized weapons plus infinite health and mana.
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Rising from Palm’s ashes, Kassie Krut acts more joyous in its pursuits of reckless destruction. Showing off they can write a pop song, and then letting it self-destruct upon impact. A train car full of diamonds and jewels hurtling right towards a Bugs Bunny painted tunnel mural.
84. TESS ROBY – Ideas of Space (2022)
Staring up at the night sky and watching dark clouds slowly pass between yourself and the moon, along with a slight, mirrored object you catch yourself smiling in when the light is right.
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I was able to sling some hyperbole when this record came out and say it was the premier dream pop experience of 2022. I can’t quite say it’s the pinnacle of the half-decade, but it still is a sublime dream pop record, one of the best ever.
83. KEIYAA – Forever, ya Girl (2020)
The sun shining through clouds during a rainy day and watching the water evaporate in large droplets off your body and into the sky.
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A record that still feels fresh even after a wave of copycats, or rather a co-opting of a looser, more sketch-like assemblage of sounds woven into an R&B framework. Woozy, dreamy but never loses sight.
82. HORSEGIRL – Versions of Modern Performance (2022)
Noticing someone that wears the exact same outfit you did the day before, down to the personal details, until you realize you’ve just warped back into the past when your retro fashion was current.
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You gotta hand it to ’em. The kids are alright. If they went in wanting to make a record that perfectly nailed the guitar tones and emotional impact of classic 90s and 00s indie rock records, they achieved that in spades. A record that already feels like a classic itself.
81. ANA ROXANNE – Because of a Flower (2020)
Floating on your back in shallow currents, feeling schools of minnows billow below you.
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Multilayered threads of voice, twinkling synthesizer and a good dose of field recordings act as a grounding space for stormy thoughts to fade away. The blissful in the ordinary, the ordinary in the fantastical.
80. MEERNAA – So Far So Good (2023)
Navigating a to-scale model of the house you grew up in, except everything is cast in golden-tinted glass like old 60s drinking cups. Your fingers brush up against all the smooth surfaces, the curved glass walls and fixtures bend the light in hypnotizing ways.
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A criminally overlooked record, Meernaa’s sophomore release So Far So Good is a sublime melange of groovy lounge pop and homespun, slightly psychedelic folk rock. This record, in my mind, nobly accepts the comps to artists like The Blue Nile and Talk Talk.
79. ELYSIA CRAMPTON – ORCORARA 2010 (2020)
Watching a meteor shower from inside the belly of a translucent snake.
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Experimental electronic + spoken word with striking beauty foiled against some brutal ugliness. Feelings of stabbing headaches paired with a wide-open prairie of flowers shaken by a gentle breeze. The piano sound on this album is heart-stopping and the narrators across multiple tracks have excellent voices to be paired with this music. While other Elysia / Chuquimamani-Condori records are pure chaos, this one balances what they’re best at.
78. TINASHE – BB/ANG3L (2023)
Watching your partner or crush from across the room through a full champagne flute; the bubbling liquid dancing around their figure and casting them in a golden aura.
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Expertly trimmed and arranged electronic pop + R&B record that doesn’t overstay its welcome, rather invites repeated, nearly endless replays. Tinashe’s acrobatic voice skates across instrumentals from the likes of Machinedrum and Nosaj Thing, among others, covering the high and low lit moments of a late night partying.
77. JOANNA STERNBERG – I’ve Got Me (2023)
Getting pushed down a hill by your crush, getting up and giving a big shrug and sigh to the camera.
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Sternberg is a pure songwriting talent, expressing deeply nuanced and tortured states of mind via the simplest paths possible. Never has self-toxicity, mental health, love, and worldly negativity sounded so relatable. An inextinguishable human spirit, burning bright in a world of darkness.
76. LUNAR VACATION – Inside Every Fig Is A Dead Wasp (2021)
Drawing a dark magic summoning circle with your friends from high school to bring back a lost stuffed animal from childhood.
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Atlanta’s Lunar Vacation busted onto the scene with a debut full-length that is wall-to-wall with hits of hooky, vivacious and inventive indie pop. Similar textures and tones from your favorite indie rock groups are present, but the depth behind these songwriters is apparent, as songs threaten weeks of rent-free tenacity in your brain on minimal listens. Even the little details are checked off, with subtle flourishes abound (see the hand percussion in “Mold”… are you kidding me?). A band that feels fully cooked (in a good way) and ready to expand further.
75. TOOTARD – Migrant Birds (2020)
A one-way ticket on a trans-dimensional time machine that transports you to a sparkling disco club in the Middle East, in a universe free of US foreign intervention, only dancing.
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Fun Arabic disco from a Golan Heights-born brotherly duo with infectious earworm synth hooks in nearly every song. Even the slower songs have some melodic aspect to them that gets you moving. Stellar rhythm guitar, era-correct drum machine mixed with live drums, melodramatic strings, and smooth vocals sung in Arabic. But let’s be real: it’s all about the quarter-tone synthesizer. It is the star on every song, laying down wicked-fast melodies + hooks like nothing. Banger after banger.
74. GINGER ROOT – SHINBANGUMI (2024)
A two-part radio drama about a salaryman rushing to make the last train of the night, running into too many of his drinking companions that want to just hang out and chat.
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You ever wish that city pop was real and not just some fictional thing that terminally online music losers invented? Miharu Koshi? YMO? Tatsuro Yamashita? That’s a psyop. Gimme SHINBANGUMI, packed with groovy banger after banger, recorded in a studio that sounds like its technology is melting and warping due to the heat coming off the instruments. Bandleader Cameron Lew is a magnetic vocal presence, his frenzied charisma winning over any audience.
73. TIRZAH – Colourgrade (2021)
The disorienting warmth from early morning sunlight after a night of failing to sleep leads to fever-like feelings of imbalance, incomprehension and moodiness. The weight of the renewed modern world lays heavy upon you like an extra-weighted blanket.
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Icy, ultra-minimal R&B that takes some swings to fully crack into. Tirzah’s understated vocals glide along instrumentals of obtuse construction: at times slick and devoid of humidity, other times disarmingly challenging. Upon my first few listens, this album was a massive disappointment. Now I’ve learned to appreciate and fully get lost in its aloof ridges. An album of reluctant love songs, striving to resemble ad rebuild worn connections, fully unlike any other this decade.
72. AMAARAE – Fountain Baby (2023)
Going to a different penthouse apartment party each week like it’s your job. Not going to mix drinks, not going to clean up, not going to DJ – your job is to be lascivious and be the person everyone wants to know.
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Imagine if more pop albums took risks like Fountain Baby does. Imagine if more pop albums had the same care and attention put into it as Fountain Baby does. The range of instrumentals pulling from countless pools of “worldly” flavors is refreshing on its own, but amaarae’s charisma alone helps this record float across 14 songs and 40 minutes.
71. MJ LENDERMAN – Boat Songs (2022)
Digging up old action figures from your childhood home’s backyard but they don’t look like how you remembered.
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Easily relatable, funny and most of all hard-hitting and catchy country-touched rock tunes to populate both your “windows down” playlist as well as your “hungover in the Six Flags parking lot on a 100ºF day, listening to your favorite team lose on sports radio” playlist.
70. BEN SERETAN – Cicada Waves (2021)
Small leaves of a houseplant on a windowsill sway gently after a big sigh.
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This is a record that has brought me an immeasurable amount of peace. A supremely crafted collection of piano works housed in open fields of worldly (and otherworldly, c’mon now) ambience. It goes past a robotic calming app’s pre-generated soothing sounds. The piano is undoubtedly human, and the little touch of including the creaky footsteps before and after songs further illuminates the physical space the album was recorded in. It was not concocted in a lab. It was done out in the field, by a person wanting to capture peace in a jar and offer it to us.
69. MARY LATTIMORE – Silver Ladders (2020)
Watching a beautiful meteor shower crest over Earth’s surface as you float through space.
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Multidimensional instrumental harp music that billows like a deep-sea jellyfish, all pulsating with bioluminescence. Erase your preconceived notion that harps are for angelic music only. This carries some true darkness: murky and uncertain melodies and chord voicing that end in cosmic passages of pure beauty.
68. INDIGO SPARKE – Hysteria (2022)
An intricately sewn and patterned quilted sheet hangs on a clothesline over a salt marsh and billows in the incoming sea breeze.
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A vast, immediately-engaging folk-rock-ish record that feels like you’re staring upon a wide-open plain before a fierce snowstorm. It burns with a low-lying intensity for the entire record, but heats up to an insatiable fire on nearly every track. Perfect as the first record you listen to in the morning to get you warmed up for the day.
67. ALEX G – God Save The Animals (2022)
A bar band fights pessimism and nihilism from bleeding into their old standards while playing through their set in an underground bunker immediately after a worldwide catastrophe.
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The G-Man’s adventures into pockets of hyperpop and more overt inspiration from early 90s alt rock, while still rotating through his more well-tread threads of folk rock, indie rock and country lead to a bit of an uneven record for me, but the strength of the songs that hit (“No Bitterness,” “Blessing” and of course “Runner” make the experience worth it.
66. WET – Letter Blue (2021)
In the middle of a post-human city park overtaken by vibrant flora, a hologram tour guide continues to make its rounds on their pre-programmed path.
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Letter Blue is a pop album that ripples from a steady current of small waves. A lot of the magic lies in the performance of lead singer Kelly Zutrau, whose pristine voice is frequently coated in an uncanny sheen of autotune, letting her agile glissando take on an otherworldly timbre. Surrounding her is shimmering piano and pockets of strings, pulsating electronics coalescing around her voice are the moments that make this album special. There are some good pop songs on here, continuing to flex Wet’s prowess as effective songwriters. If the more immediate songs bring you in, stay for the slower moments too. Gorgeous and hypnotizing.
65. ARMAND HAMMER – We Buy Diabetic Test Strips (2023)
In a not-so-distance future, phone numbers are abolished so you have to find who you’re trying to call in a vast landscape of fellow callers, being privy to real conversations happening across the world, acting as an audience to people’s traumatic experiences.
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Armand Hammer, aka billy woods and ELUCID accurately capture the whole vibe of the last five year, taking stock of the world’s everyday hostilities via their poison barb-studded bars over instrumentals from the likes of DJ Haram, El-P, JPEGMAFIA and more. A real doomsday record, flexing how these current times are already being rewritten, as they happen, for future generations to misremember.
64. NALA SINEPHRO – Space 1.8 (2021)
A bartender in a futurist-designed luxury space hotel stares wistfully out of the window as they shake someone’s drink, as patrons quietly illuminate the space with conversation and distant stars burn brightly across the galaxy.
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Sublime performances bedazzle this cosmic journey of ambient jazz, interlocking across different movements and moods, telling an engaging story across its eight acts. The eternal jazz harp greats Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane smile from beyond at a new face in the canon, as Sinephro’s delicate arrangements on both harp and keys build dreamy, meditative zones for her players to operate in and her listeners to get lost within.
63. YOU’LL NEVER GET TO HEAVEN – Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train (2021)
Dunking your head into a tropical fish tank and watching colorful fish dart around swaying anemone.
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A portal into another dimension, plain and simple. You’ll Never Get To Heaven pluck selects from a suite of sounds to assemble this foggy, uncanny masterwork of dream pop. A little fretless bass plucking harmonics, some glistening piano echoing from a faraway place only remembered from dreams, washes of blissful synthesizer, all treated to a heavy drenching of reverb. Together, it’s a pale, fragrant bouquet of pure comfort. A pillowy foreign world that instantly feels familiar, welcoming and refreshing.
62. DOSS – 4 New Hit Songs (2021)
Skateboarding down a subway tunnel where the curved walls are bright, touchscreen LCD displays broadcasting Vtuber rhythm game let’s play footage.
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Enigmatic producer Doss’ second EP, Four Hit Songs, feels scientifically engineered to plug directly into the pleasure center of the brain, injecting dreamy trance, sugar-dripping electronics and even shoegaze to produce a high unlike any other. Not only are the sounds themselves satisfying, but the way they’re presented really gets me. I gotta double down on my “Warm Visions” description – it really feels like the sound is curling, wobbling and bending around the listener to be present at all angles. A quick confection of pop excellence, four distinct flavors to coat your brain with as you traipse upon the town.
61. CHARLI XCX – brat (2024)
Meeting a party girl in a club bathroom on your first visit to a major big city who shows you so much kindness but also plunges you into an endless well of debauchery, changing your life forever.
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Now a year removed from brat summer, it’s become clear that that was a major anchor point keeping everyone who participated tied to something bigger than them. Now that we’re out of brat summer what else is there to hold onto? A major cultural moment that earns its stripes by being daring, tender, vulnerable, hedonistic and FUN. Confessional pop music that feels fake and sincere. Make it what you want, it will mold around you, or better yet, you’ll mold around it.
60. DANIEL BACHMAN – Almanac Behind (2022)
Finding a house destroyed by a landslide with a radio on inside, broadcasting a severe storm warning.
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I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Daniel Bachman is one of the world’s most important living artists. A folk record coming straight from a land of flames and landslides. This is what we’re in for. Transmissions of southern folk and country, blasted through a broken transistor radio. A world of accumulated junk finally caving in the floor beneath us, wrapping back through the fabric of space to rain floods upon us. A fully doomed record, one of the heaviest of the decade so far.
59. FONTAINES D.C. – Romance (2024)
Young men on the outskirts of town and their youth struggling to find a place in this world, rebelling in violent and self-destructive ways.
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One of the great rock records of the 20s so far. Shedding the post punk trappings they’d begun to grow out of on their last record, FDC made their most accessible record yet while still sounding exquisitely THEM. Some jangle pop here, some nu-metal inspiration there, some haunting ruminations elsewhere, blood-pumping arena-rock there… it’s the whole package.
58. DESTROYER – LABYRINTHITIS (2022)
The feeling you achieve when you’ve finally read every book in existence and take your scooter into town to tell everyone about your achievement.
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Luscious grooves abound as Destroyer finally embrace the mutant sophistipop like we’ve been waiting for them to do for the last decade or so. Energy-packed performances back up Dan Bejar at his wiliest, going on more song-exploding tangents than ever before.
57. LAND OF TALK – Indistinct Conversations (2020)
A woodsy bike ride at dusk transports the rider into a rare twilight realm plane of existence, and they must connect with their memories to escape before sunrise.
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Brilliant rock music with masterful control of dynamics, songwriting and overall tone. The way the guitars sound on this record is immaculate to me. They channel smoldering ashes at the bottom of a campfire, with the according ambiance that floats around them acting as the smoke. Deep percussion booms in the background, Elizabeth Powell’s voice switching between a whispery burn to a commanding presence, and all the little flourishes that fill in the empty spaces are just wonderful. And like I mentioned before: the guitars. This is a rockin record with its own moments of tenderness.
56. WINGED WHEEL – Big Hotel (2024)
Tales of aliens that crash landed in a small, middle-of-nowhere midwestern town, who experience harrowing, psychedelic hallucinations thanks to Earth’s thick, polluted air while they rebuild their craft with rusting junk, but are greatly unnoticed by the townsfolk, their eyes having glazed over years ago.
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A raucous and reverberating alchemical reaction of a record where mutated rock emerges from heady, psychedelic jams. Thick, soupy guitars and bass put in a tough spin cycle by tight, snappy drums from none other than Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley. Blissful, big country noise envelops tracks, with murky melodies echoing from beyond and into the foreground. A true shredder’s delight, a trek through a shimmering swamp to find nothing but the good stuff.
55. STILL HOUSE PLANTS – If i don’t make it, i love u (2024)
Delirious after staying up for 36 hours, you pass by a television store with vintage CRTs stacked in the window, all of them transmitting messages to you from loved ones.
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One of the best “rock” records of the decade so far. Utilizing minimal, precise drumming, Matisse-like cutouts of guitar, and the seismic vocals of singer Jess Hickie-Kallenbach, the three-piece captures undulating waves of momentum that ensnares its listeners, first catching them in their whirlpool and then paves them over with repeated, crushing grooves.
54. DEHD – Blue Skies (2022)
A cool cowboy-loving character in your hometown that loves the open sky and isn’t an old creep, but rather a charismatic pillar of the community.
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My summer-defining record of 2022. Shaggy garage pop with straight-from-the-gut split-time vocals from the band’s two singers encapsulate that perfect feeling of yearning. A desire to explode out of stagnation. A missive away from the cosmically poisoning. It’s music that begs for windows to be opened, late sunlight, for a wind of change to blow through.
53. SEA OLEENA – Weaving a Basket (2020)
Watching wisps of smoke from a blown-out candle trail and mix into the starry sky.
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Vast, airy dreamscapes of sound where everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion. Most of the songs are on the longer side, allowing the instrumentals to gradually build over time to carve out grand formations of misty synthesizer, stretched out strings, constellations of acoustic guitar and liminal field recordings for Oleena’s light vocals to swirl around.
52. LOW – HEY WHAT (2021)
Running on two hours of sleep on a five day orbit around the Earth, blearily looking down at streaking clouds and ocean layer through tired eyes and molten space glass.
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On HEY WHAT, the final album with co-founding member Mimi Parker, Low continued to forge into digitally-charred and blistered regions of distortion like on 2018’s Double Negative, finding euphoria in caustically damaged and soured sounds. Packed with huge, absolutely blown out moments that split time with tender, confessional moments, spun in a way that’s accessible and a logical next step in a prolific career.
51. LAURA MARLING – Song For Our Daughter (2020)
A grandparent reflects on their more wild and wanderlust-fulfilling days and finds pride in watching their grandchildren express the same rambunctiousness they once did.
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Expertly crafted, written, performed and arranged singer/songwriter record. Wonderful pacing and balance of sadder, introspective songs and more upbeat pop songs. Everything in its right place and oh so satisfying, like something you’d find in between the masters of songwriting of the 60s and 70s.
50. WESTERMAN – Your Hero Is Not Dead (2020)
Swimming down a river at sunrise scented with pleasing, balmy fragrances.
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Earnest, dreamy sophisti-pop with a touch of Arthur Russell-level eclecticism thrown in for good measure. Epic (but not empty) landscapes of melodies toasted in reverb soar above jazz-trained percussion and nimble guitar work that sometimes feels smeared together across the length of the album, but there are enough true heaters on here to make it feel separate. A shady summer listen meant for marveling.
49. BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD – Ants From Up There (2022)
A deep obsession builds within you over an AI avatar, housed in a server halfway across the world, and your friends try to bring you back to the real world.
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This record saw a band near the front of the new wave of talky UK post-punk transition to being a band seemingly more inspired by musical theatre and other stage & screen compositions. It’s been clear the band has been comprised to uber-talented musicians, so why not weave those skills and knowledge into wicked, inventive new songs. The last record with Isaac Wood’s exasperated vocals, now being split between all the women in the band. After re-listening to this album, I wonder how Wood would have fit into the band’s new compositions if he were to have stayed in the band. Alas – this is a good one!
48. ADRIANNE LENKER – songs (2020)
Autumn-colored dead leaves spill out from behind framed pictures of family, flood old photo albums and pile out of closets and crawlspaces as you lay in the middle of your living room floor.
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Fragile paper cranes of voice + acoustic guitar organized on a mossy log. As vulnerable as we’ve known Lenker’s solo material (and Big Thief work) to be, and with songs that are just as potent. Subtly wicked guitar work. Lenker is a gift to the instrument, and the world of songwriting in general.
47. POWERS / PULICE / ROLIN – Prism (2023)
The late morning sun shining through a tree full of orange and yellow leaves, so bright you have to squint even with sunglasses on. Making peace with the passing of time and its tremendous changes the world goes through each and every day.
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Jen Powers (dulcimer), Cole Pulice (saxophone) and Matthew Rolin (guitar) combine their powers into one beautiful, cosmic entity that carves out a modern epic of instrumental psychedelic, almost devotional music on Prism. Pulice has one of the most recognizable timbres in music today, and having them in any project just automatically makes it good. Powers / Rolin Duo on their own are also a force to be reckoned with, so this was an obvious slam dunk from the start.
46. GROUPER – Shade (2021)
Having a conversation with a past version of yourself through an unstable time portal in an abandoned old house.
~~
Shade is an album that came together from 15 years’ worth of songs, whittled down and placed together to fit the theme of this album, which feels like what the title suggests: sitting in the shade during a hot day. In this case, the hot day is the last two years. Sometimes it does feel a bit disjointed compared to Grouper’s other bulletproof records, but that’s hardly a criticism. Shade features some of Liz Harris’ most straightforward songs to date, with simple guitar playing + vocals that aren’t mired in sonic space dust. I do appreciate that there are two and a half noisier cuts on here with “Followed the ocean” and “Disordered Minds”, giving a little instrumental variety. But with songs like “Kelso (Blue sky)” and “Promise” – how can any Grouper fan not go gaga over this record? It flows delicately like a wooded creek, dead leaves clogging certain parts but the water continues to find a way through. A shining, reflective ribbon on a cold day.
45. CHARLI XCX – how i’m feeling now (2020)
Vision blurring after endlessly scrolling through your phone until 5am every night.
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how I’m feeling now is pop music that attempts to wrestle free of its government-ordered shackles along with the personal demons that Charli was forced to confront while in lockdown, as the album was made in something like five weeks in 2020. At times feeling finds the party within itself and with interpersonal relationships, illuminated on some ace love songs. The album is best when it goes the hardest, with “pink diamond”, “anthems”, “visions” and “claws” naturally increasing my heart rate and providing a cathartic blast of energy to fight off the apathy of this imposed sedentary lifestyle. The slower songs also shine, however, with great vocal hooks and the same wonderful production we’ve known from Charli’s past releases. This is the one “covid” record I can think of, so I’m glad it’s one of this quality and not some rubbish.
44. SUDAN ARCHIVES – Natural Brown Prom Queen (2022)
Covered in honey, glistening in the sunrise.
~~
An awesome, inventive pop record with moments of hip hop, R&B and funk all put on such a massive scale, with immaculate production and catchy songwriting. It doesn’t really sound like any of Sudan’s contemporaries, and that’s not just from the violin, but rather Sudan’s personality. Once you’ve heard a few of her songs, there won’t be any mistaking who’s behind them going forward.
43. EARTHEATER – Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin (2020)
A shapeless smoke druid acts as a siren to the River Styx, luring unwitting travelers to their doom once they touch the swirling currents.
~~
Orchestral experimental pop music that seems to exist in its own, magma-lit dimension. Arrangements of swirling strings engulf the landscape in an ash-choked fog, distorted uncanny electronics provide a craggy landscape for the songs to build upon, and the stripped back acoustic guitar and Eartheater’s spindly vocals act as wisps of spirits that echo through the cinematic, barren wasteland. The striking cover and song titles (“Volcano”, “Kiss Of The Phoenix”, “Airborne Ashes”, “Burning The Feather”) also provide the listener ample imagination fuel to picture where these songs would exist: a bright, smoky expanse. Eartheater successfully creates a home in the flames of hell.
42. CHARLOTTE ADIGERY & BOLIS PUPUL – Topical Dancer (2022)
An inflated, rubbery smiley face chaotically squishes and careens through a wide, blank white hall with one party disco colored-light ball in the corner while scientists take notes behind protective glass.
~~
This is both a funny record and a bomb exploration of pop music. Nearly every song of meticulously crafted electro comes with a wink, an elbow jab, a tongue sticking out the side of the mouth; bringing levity to such light topics as say, racism, sexism, cultural appropriation, bigotry, and the like. It’s a record that will puncture you with its whiplike instrumentals, invigorating melodies, and then get you thinking and hopefully acting on both the wack shit we deal with on a daily basis.
41. KATY KIRBY – Cool Dry Place (2021)
Building a pillow fort with a clear view of the starry sky on the site of your childhood home that had been demolished 10 years prior.
~~
Hit after hit after hit after hit. Tender pop and folk songs with a hint of an emo upbringing that carry a spark of relatability that’ll make you start singing along to every song by the second or third listen. Bleeding with personality and a sense of not taking herself too seriously, Kirby makes love songs for the current generation – ones that feel GOOD to listen to. Getting shades of Hop Along on this record, which means it’s breathing rare air.
40. OVLOV – Buds (2021)
Getting a static shock from an old wooly couch that blows you through your home’s front window.
~~
The hits just don’t stop coming on Buds, squeezing eight songs into 25 minutes of near-perfection. All killer, no filler. When the band wants to go heavy, they pile it on: get ready for intense, fuzz-driven rock that’ll knock the plaque off your teeth. When they want to start tender and build up and flex those dynamics, oh they’ll do that. There’s even a crushing saxophone solo. There are dimensions here not often seen in a fuzzy 90s-referencing rock record. There is clear thought put into each song here.
39. NU GENEA – Bar Mediterraneo (2022)
A cocktail that engages all of the senses and tastes: salty hits of briny liquid that makes your hands shake, sour citrus causing visual hallucinations, bitterness popping your ears, umami making every caress magnified. Sweating it out on the dance floor.
~~
Globe-trotting funk with strains from nearly all corners of the Earth, all convening in one grand palatial estate next to the ocean. Guest vocal features of many different dialects populate the track list, dictating the party while sublime grooves get the endless dance floor melting in all directions. Also, there are flute solos. Cmon now.
38. JESSIE WARE – What’s Your Pleasure? (2020)
A roller rink disco fantasy of your dreams, sweat cooled by a swiveling fan each circuit.
~~
When Jessie Ware released What’s Your Pleasure? in 2020, I said “thank you Jessie.” Immaculately produced, performed and arranged dance pop bringing all the drama and disco I’ve been missing back to my daily life. The album as a whole sounds immaculate, from the pockets of strings swirled in, the punchy bass, the background singers, the synth backing, and Jessie’s versatile voice combine into the full package. I definitely played this record in the apartment and lip-synced to most of it to my partner, much to her chagrin.
37. LAURA MARLING – Patterns In Repeat (2024)
After a family party, you stay away, sitting by the fire. Laughter and tears from years past still echo in everyday objects.
~~
Prolific singer/songwriter Laura Marling goes deeper into the themes of motherhood, family, relationships, the passage of time and love on Patterns In Repeat. Romantic and melancholic, Patterns is a rich album that doesn’t need a lot to feel satisfying. It’s an intimate listen that’ll make you cry, make you think of a past or present lover, about family, about life itself. We are so lucky to have this genius in our lives.
36. MALIBU – Palaces of Pity EP (2022)
Dissolving your body into icy seas and spreading yourself upon the frozen beaches of the northern hemisphere.
~~
The sound of dusk. The sound of not quite darkness, but dark enough that you aren’t able to make out the faces of people a few feet in front of you. This is music made for tucking into the night like a comforter, with wide-shot, glacial slabs of stretched-out vocals and smoothed-out synthetic strings paving over your knotted brain. Finding euphoria in the murky expanse.
35. MDOU MOCTAR – Afrique Victime (2021)
A massive bonfire lights up an entire town, emitting softball-sized embers into the sky that sizzle out like engorged fireflies.
~~
Rip-roaring North African Tuareg rock of the highest order. If you haven’t seen these guys, or other similar Tuareg bands live, please fix that. When the group really get going, it feels like your body has been struck by lightning; its energy coursing through your veins, spurring you to move in wild ways. Masterful guitar work (and let’s be honest, do NOT sleep on the drummer!) take the lead on these songs, showing that there is a bright future for guitar-based rock, it’s just not in the usual places it’s been in for the last 50 years.
34. PEARL & THE OYSTERS – Coast 2 Coast (2023)
A tourism commercial for the most idyllic paradise ever captured on film, only the perceived bending of time and space, assumed created by an old CRT screen in the commercial, actually exist on location and distort the landscape.
~~
A dream-like environment where balmy grooves flow freely alongside space-age sound effects. Effortlessly easy to listen to over and over to help transport you into another world, a world of which I have spent countless hours inside since 2023. A “Hosono-ass band” as one friend described them.
33. ERIKA DE CASIER – Sensational (2021)
An etiquette instructor in a snappy white suit is seen having a tense exchange on their cellular phone in the estate’s rose garden, concluding with snapping the phone shut and striding back inside.
~~
Where Erika De Casier’s 2019 debut Essentials introduced us to Erika’s flawless time warp back to golden Y2K-era R&B and sees Erika chilling and having fun, Sensational deepens the sound and stakes on almost every level. There are moody, minimal moments where de Casier is upset with her partner disrespecting her. Likewise, there are moments of de Casier reassuring her own strength and personal growth with tracks like “Better Than That” and “Busy”. Dipping back to the matter of sonic depth, there are little flourishes of hand percussion, covert bass leaking out in pivotal moments on songs across the record. It’s so relieving to hear Erika retain the instant magic that made her debut so exciting and showed off substantial growth in just two years, with two more records since then.
32. MALI OBOMSAWIN – Sweet Tooth (2022)
A flooding plain on the top floor of a tall structure; fluctuating waterfalls follow the moon’s pull as the days go by.
~~
An incredibly sick and masterful record. It’s an exploration of jazz at its base, but with elements of rock, folk and traditional Native American music knitted within, making for the occasional unorthodox melody or motif. Balanced moments of pure chaos with serene beauty, really putting a shine on the individual players of the group, as well as bandleader Obomsawin, who leads the band via the bass with ease.
31. ANGEL OLSEN – Big Time (2022)
Only memories of sunlight cutting through the steam of their drink the last time you saw them remain.
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Taking on a more hi-fi approach to country rock that her earlier work alluded to in a more lo-fi setting, Olsen navigates heartbreak and a new life beyond in songs that all would work perfectly in the back half of a redemptive, emotionally-gripping drama. Songs with small beginnings that have been finely aged and grown, to fill spaces in the biggest of halls and the most intimate of cafes. Has the potential to be my favorite Angel Olsen reccord.
30. TWO SHELL – Icons EP (2022)
A brain-reprogramming course that strips your old memories for parts and outfits your remaining grey matter with ad-sponsored, AI-built tech components that flood your current field of vision, motor skills and even past memories with countless ads and tech oligarchy-approved slop content.
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Thrilling electronic compositions that are intricately detailed with hundreds of, what I’ll call, micro-details, that enhance the listening experience tenfold. On its face the songs themselves are exciting because of the dynamic bass, the inventive percussion and rhythms, but deeper than that, the personality embedded into each track gives them all a cinematic kind of quality. Each track is its own chapter in a wider universe, getting you invested in the journey they’re taking you on across the EP.
29. LIP CRITIC – Hex Dealer (2024)
Openly acknowledging and taunting the secret capitalism sensor drone that’s been tasked to you (like every person) to make sure we support the consumer empire efficiently. Your wanton defiance even causes the surveillance to glitch and its AI to consider self-termination.
~~
Hex Dealer is an aggressive debut record that feels deeply planted in the fatigue and rage that we’ve been sitting upon since the start of the pandemic. An intense distrust of government figures (due to their lack of action, two-faced demeanor, etc), a rise of fascism, the disappearing concept of “choice”, mass death splattered on the fringes of our vision, surveillance capitalism consuming every sector of our lives, among other factors that lobotomize our souls daily. This aggression is blasted through a setup of two on drums and two on electronics, making for a heavy-hitting, mutant hardcore / dance hybrid, as the thunderous percussion lights the fire and the squelching electronics boil under your skin. Not to mention the doomsday sermon singing from frontman Bret Kaser, who feels like he’s ripping out your skeleton if your brain is refusing to act. It feels like a dire alarm.
28. BILLY WOODS & KENNY SEGAL – Maps (2023)
The fourth hour of a six hour flight, sleeping pills have worn off, finished your book, and all the text messages you sent before you took off have yet to be replied to.
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woods and Kenny Segal profile the withering human spirit that comes with constant travel and the grating of the soul that comes as time passes. A fantastic lyricist teams with an adept producer, crafting wild realms for woods to tell stories within.
27. ANNA VON HAUSSWOLF – All Thoughts Fly (2020)
Standing on a towering cliff above the ocean and letting the wind whip around you as the waves rip at the rocks below.
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Absolutely massive instrumental pipe organ works. Overwhelming at some points, tender and soaring at others, but gorgeous through and through. Came out on a metal label, so there’s a little insight into the mood here. Intense, swirling passages of organ crash around the listener, while high-pitched tones cry over top. Every sound here was made with one organ. Your brain almost makes you not want to believe that – it couldn’t possibly all be coming from one place, much like Colin Stetson’s transcendent saxophone playing. It reminds me of the din of cities; hearing hundreds of little sounds at once coalescing into one hurried transmission. Carries real pain, real anguish and real hope. No other record out there like it. Put it in nice headphones or a good speaker system and let it engulf you.
26. MARCI – Marci (2022)
You just went on a shopping spree at the mall and you’re now driving home, but in reality you just shoplifted a lot of expensive clothes and the police are after you. But that doesn’t fit the fantasy.
~~
The debut solo record from TOPS bandmember Marci is simply one of the best pop records of the decade so far. She channels glamorous 80s pop tropes to the degree of being almost too corny, but toes that line wonderfully. She delivers the glamorous, hair-flipping fantasy. Not to mention the production on the whole thing is immaculate – the record SOUNDS fantastic along with being well written, arranged and performed.
25. ALVVAYS – Blue Rev (2022)
Getting a text that blows the walls of your house apart instantly upon reading.
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Essentially undeniable indie rock and power pop that double the size and scope of their previous compositions, letting in songs that are both able to breathe more in their neurotic settings and slam through at breakneck paces. In 2022 I was a bit disappointed with the record (and was burnt out by it even prior to release due to incessant ads and promo I was getting for it), but after sitting with it for three years… yeah it’s another stellar record in Alvvays’ now fully bulletproof discography.
24. NILÜFER YANYA – PAINLESS (2022)
Each of your fingers are a mini-projector, emitting holographic depictions of your lurking anxieties and motivations.
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Nilüfer Yanya extracts the lightning in a bottle quality of 00s indie rock excitement that captivated blogs across the world, but adds something that was severely lacking from that period: a female voice + perspective. PAINLESS is just a straight-up great rock record with great dynamics, innovative production techniques, and a general sonic variety to keep every listen fresh, hopefully writing a new canon of rock for future musicians to return to in the next decade.
23. SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE – Entertainment, Death (2021)
Staying up for two full days watching unmarked VHS tapes from a dumpster, then hiking to the top of a wooded mountain and burying yourself in litter you collected on the way.
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A rollercoaster ride into your own grave. Part paranoid, part lucid, part sedated, part self-destructive peak experimental rock collage where all the instruments seem to be processed on top of each other at times, held together by glitter glue and saliva. There are moments of respite, passing by like a refreshing breeze, but they’re easily washed away by digital interference or slowly turned sour as the batteries start to die. Sound collects on spools and becomes tangled in a mess, jamming the machine. It’s not a whole bummer, there’s a fair amount of well-lit moments of levity, but it’s a harrowing journey for the uninitiated.
22. IGLOOGHOST – Tidal Memory Exo (2024)
Grinding across a rail made of pieces of old, decrepit A/V equipment in the underbelly of a crumbling future metropolis, its shantytown-like dwellings shadowed by empty towers and covered with soot from the skies above.
~~
This record sounds like how the cover looks. Through series of dizzying electronics, threads of illicit pastoral / warehouse UK raves, pirate radio broadcasts and rapidly accumulating tech junk, Iglooghost portrays some kind of crumbling, futuristic megacity where the climate has collapsed and the rich elites have escaped to some faraway planet or space station, letting the bulk of the population fend for themselves in labyrinthian. dead skyscraper-framed corridors, the toxic ocean water lapping up further every day. Utilizing salvaged satellite technology, DJs and ravers have made networks of pirate radio stations across this bleak metropolis, providing a sonic escape for these waning, poisoned days. This is just my vision for the record, but in a summer like 2024’s that felt hotter than ever and a world government that felt equally as dystopian, it was hard not to make some connections to a potential future timeline here.
21. DRY CLEANING – New Long Leg (2021)
A J.D. Salinger novel protagonist escapes the story they’re bound to, hijacks a car and buys a house in the American southwest to live a life in peace.
~~
Dry Cleaning is like a cool imaginary older sibling beside me. To the naked eye, I am a nerd with newly bad skin and a huffing, puffing, masked face, looking out the bus window. With New Long Leg, I am a Sonic Youth album cover. I’m in the backseat of my sibling’s car, being picked up from middle school, stuffed between their cool friends and careening around tight corners. I’m taken to the edge of the quarry to throw rocks and listen to them talk about what books and movies they had loaned from the library that week. What they did that week at their mundane day jobs. What art exhibits they’re wanting to go see in the city next weekend. My imaginary older sibling doesn’t have to bring me along places, but they’re kind enough to. They’re looking out for me. An aura of prickliness but never approaching uncaring. So yeah that’s what I’m feeling like for this one, I’d say more but this is my stop. Back to being a nerd. See ya!
20. FLOATING POINTS, PHAROAH SANDERS & THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA – Promises (2021)
Weightlessness.
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A modern electronic wizard meets a jazz legend, backed up by a prestigious orchestra. There’s almost no way this could have turned out bad. Spoiler alert – it turned out great. I don’t think we could have imagined the final product being like this, but it lived up to the massive expectations that were set beforehand, in my head anyways. The album carries a minimal motif across nine movements and 47 minutes, telling an engaging, poignant story in the process. It delivers true weightlessness. A collage of stars and faraway galaxies, twinkling across a grand expanse of space. An album you put on to let go to earthly tethers to. An album we’re all lucky to have in our lives.
19. YVES TUMOR – Heaven To A Tortured Mind (2020)
Alien glam rock entity from the same universe as Interstella 5555 reckons with their former self as their memories are returned to them.
~~
Yves Tumor knows how to write incredibly addicting and engaging tunes, and does so again on their venture further into the glam rock zone, still keeping a toe dipped into the noisy puddles they cut their teeth in. There are touches of their experimental past work here, but for the most part it’s just distorted kaleidoscopes of glam rock with plenty of chaos. There are some true earworms on here, “Kerosene!”, “Super Stars”, “A Greater Love”, “Gospel For A New Century” – it’s lit. Some songs act more as interludes to stitch disparate moods together, others are just chaos. It’s a high-budget rock fever dream that invades your brain and lives in your head for 36 minutes
18. LUCRECIA DALT – ¡Ay! (2022)
Wrapping yourself and your belongings up in several layers of cellophane and attempting to live your life as normal.
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Lucrecia Dalt takes the otherwise tropical and jovial sounds from her native Colombia and tilts them, eschews them with electronics and harsh, smearing textures and animated caricatures to overplay the ersatz nature of horns and big hand percussion. It sounds like sonics ripped out of a portal from the past into a far off future, stretched and warped from its rough journey in time. An ersatz hotel from a forgotten era that still somehow operates, but carries with it the trauma and anguish that time has weathered upon it.
17. L’RAIN – Fatigue (2021)
You’re granted one vision from your past while on your deathbed and you choose to watch a post-storm sunset reflected on a small tide pool full of luminescent crystals.
~~
L’Rain’s sophomore album Fatigue was incredibly auspicious, pointing to a bountiful legacy for the project, with inventive songwriting, arrangements and production, spinning a patchwork of psychedelic pop, soul and even ambient that doesn’t sound like anything else. Sounds flow freely through a hazy dreamworld, like you took a wrong turn on your way home and found yourself in some sort of floating dimension, while the backbone of each song is held up beautifully by a cadre of abundantly talented musicians. There’s a decent amount of dream pop on this list, but Fatigue stands out among the pack thanks to its bold moods, engineering and execution. I’ll also say that they are the best live band period.
16. SHABASON, KRGOVICH & HARRIS – Philadelphia (2020)
Keeping a weekly journal of cloud formations and nice texts you send to and receive from friends.
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Meditative, poetic caresses of songs ruminating on the magic and beauty in still moments. Turning the ordinary into extraordinary, but not making a big deal out of it. Instrumentals are laid back, mostly consisting of mellow synthesizer, wafting winds, fretless bass, deep piano and steady percussion. Subtle grooves bubble up from natural hot springs. A beam from the setting sun refracts through a window ornament onto the floor. Your sleepy dog yawns, shifts positions on the floor in front of you, and sighs satisfied at another great day. Herons picking for food in the foggy marsh on a morning walk. A letter a friend wrote you, held down by a paperweight, ripples gently from an open window breeze. This record is perfect for my style of descriptions. I try and point out the magic in little moments in short blurbs on a blog, these guys synthesized that into a full album.
15. FEVER RAY – Radical Romantics (2023)
An unearthly amount of built up horniness combined with innate social awkwardness mixes like napalm within the psyche of an individual, giving them superhero-like powers they use for comic mischief.
~~
Radical Romantics presses every button I look for when it comes to a The Knife or Fever Ray project. Real freaky shit goes down in the darkness and light in this one, with Karin Dreijer letting it hang out as they search and sustain romance in our backwards, barbaric world. Shucks down to the core elements of wanting to love and be loved; how slimy and slug-like we really are.
14. CAROLINE – caroline (2022)
Ancient suits of armor stand organized in formation atop a steep, ocean-facing cliff, catching fierce sunbeams through post-storm clouds as waves heartily crash below.
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Threads of metallic melancholy rattle throughout the expanse of this bold, statement-making debut LP, which thrives in moments of dirging repetition and discordant chaos, but is bound together by a purely human soul, depicted in swelling strings and earnest, untouched vocals. A gorgeous juxtaposition between warm and cold, a heart on the sleeve of a ghost tethered to this realm by an unextinguished passion.
13. JESSICA PRATT – Here In The Pitch (2024)
At the thought of a passed loved one, an open window facing a quiet, tree-lined street brings in a gentle, evening breeze that billows out an inherited lace curtain and diffuses your incense further across the room.
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Warm Visions forever favorite Jessica Pratt did it again on Here In The Pitch, adding another rich tapestry of sound to her illustrious catalog. Again the music sounds beamed in from some vintage photograph, or lost reel-to-reel tape found at the bottom of a dry well, or in the built-in wooden liquor cabinet of a smoky bar, or found atop of a dusty library shelf. A place where the carpet and wallpaper hasn’t been replaced since smoking indoors was banned. Lots of natural sunlight passing through untreated windowpanes. Delicate, all-enveloping webs of sound flickering in limited light. Pure magic, distilled.
12. TOPS – I Feel Alive (2020)
Rollerblading through a hometown mall with your friends and encountering glamorous drama between rival schools in your town.
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All killer, no filler. There are no curveballs here, TOPS are just getting better at what they do: windswept 80s-worshipping pop. I Feel Alive is a romantic fantasy, like it could soundtrack the imaginary prom of your dreams: sweaty-palm teen romance, stomach butterfly-vanquishing dance montages, friend drama (how could you go to the rival college of mine?? I thought we were going to be together forever!), lovely reunions and all the cliches you know and love. TOPS provided a safe space for us to dream of past party memories and likewise think of a brighter future.
11. MK.GEE – Two Star & The Dream Police (2024)
Soft, smooth plastic delicately wraps around a railing leading from an emptying stripmall night club at the end of the night, a man sitting out front and wearing a torn up suit smoking a blue cigarette silently begs for the sun to rise. Glossy skyscrapers echo in the immediate distance, their curved reflections hinting at a granted wish.
~~
At the end of the day, people just want a weird man shredding for them. Mk.gee does this exceptionally well, putting together sounds that the general listening populace hasn’t heard in a while (or ever) (although some of the textures on here being similar to that of ML Buch’s Suntub made my brain happy) with plenty of guitar wackery and studio tricksterisms, alongside absolutely wicked pop hooks and dynamic, top 40 pop-friendly vocal delivery. His magnetic appeal isn’t hard to comprehend. And I’ll say it again. The shredding. People want the shredding. Specifically from a weird little dude.
10. ML BUCH – Suntub (2023)
A key appears on your bedside table one morning, which unlocks a door you’ve seen in your dreams more and more often. The next morning, the key is gone, bug you’re not certain if you’re awake or still sleeping in the reality that existed behind the door.
~~
There are a lot of great records on this list (duh), but Suntub felt like a defining album upon its release. Warbly, tremolo guitars assembled in glistening, alien ways. It feels beamed down into a vast, verdant march, with tall grasses partially obscuring the face of the visitor and soaking mud underneath hinder movement. Is it an angel gracing us with its presence? Or is it just a visionary Danish musician that’s given us a work of art that confronts the growing aura of uncanniness that surrounds us at all times?
9. CINDY LEE – Diamond Jubilee (2024)
Riding by Greyhound across the high plains of Canada to different mining town dive bars in the 80s that haven’t been renovated since the 50s, to perform open mics and karaoke. Your time spent with gruff regulars and looking at the vast emptiness of the prairie with nothing but one suitcase and dwindling payphone money echoes within you.
~~
The mutated memories conjured in Cindy Lee’s retro pop are like nothing else, from their wistful manufactured nostalgia, to the windswept, howling loneliness, to the romantic isolation; you’re more likely to hear this in a greasy spoon diner local talent night in a truck stop town rather than the hippest new indie club on the block. It’s beamed in from pages of the past that have been mostly taped over by the sands of time, chipping away at the dusty fringes until a completely new epidermis is formed. Calling from the past, a candle flame flickering in the stale darkness.
8. SPELLLING – The Turning Wheel (2021)
A cliffside greenhouse obscured by massive clouds holds the key to eternal life via a rare strain of herbs, as an ageless witch guards it with deceptive magic.
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Like tuning into a community theater project on your local access television channel, but the troupe has stretched every dollar to its maximum potential and puts on something akin to legendary Broadway musicals. The Turning Wheel is a drama on a massive scale, with SPELLLING leveling-up her gothic chamber pop sound to new heights and crafting multi-layered movements of strings, pounding piano, sci-fi synth and psychedelic embellishments. Nearly every track trembles with mystical energy, with Chrystia Cabral as the headmaster in this domain, conducting her brilliant orchestra with ease. It’s immaculately produced, each element of the sound coming through clearly and the majestic vision placed at center stage. A monumental work that keeps getting better with age.
7. BILLY WOODS – Aethiopes (2022)
An ancient slave ship is found buried underneath an Amazon shipping facility located just outside an urban sprawl.
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Hip hop you can enjoy without needing to read the lyrics alongside, but the experience becomes enriched tenfold once you do sit down and process what woods is talking about on Aethiopes. Elite visual storytelling that lays each track out like a movie, with imagery of painkiller-glazed eyes mirroring that of those in a Natural History Museum diorama, European colonists converting “savage” African tribes into tourist attractions and so many more stories from generations of forced trauma, all backed by intensely curated and masterful instrumentals courtesy of Preservation. Cuts deep and feels like essential listening to hear what a hardened master of the form can do this far into his career.
6. SOFIA KOURTESIS – Madres (2023)
Linking the past, present and future of a cityscape with one unique heartbeat, felt pulsing through those attuned to a distinct frequency.
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Inhale, exhale. Madres: a record whose heart still beats with the same intensity as it did upon release in 2023. A record that imagines the world as a brighter, more vibrant place, one that’s undeniably human-built, for humans. So many joyous vocal samples populate this record’s universe, begging the listener to move, to shimmy, to accept the energy Sofia has harnessed to put forth on this full package. The best dance record of the decade so far, by far.
5. EVAN J CARTWRIGHT – bit by bit (2022)
Sitting in a community theater after a production, with the main hall doors open letting in a late summer afternoon’s flowery scent and the gentle sounds of the surrounding neighborhood.
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Straightforwardly sang simple melodies with a dry, unaffected timbre, field recordings, light ambient keys, inches of jazz percussion and more delicate instrumentation thread together into a beautiful synergy on bit by bit. This is a record for a patient music listener, one that recognizes and appreciates the microscopic magic moments that occur around us on a daily basis. Whether it be humming harmonies alongside the church bells you can hear on your morning commute, to catching birds bathing themselves in sunset-drenched puddles formed after a summer rain, to catching a glimpse of someone dancing by themselves in their living room via an open window, this LP channels the quiet peace you can experience if you listen and look hard enough.
4. CASSANDRA JENKINS – An Overview On Phenomenal Nature (2021)
Sitting with your best friend by the ocean, watching blown dandelion spores float off into the current.
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Not much this decade has comforted me more than this tender collection of music here. Ethereal folk with touches of jazz and ambient country. A pure salve against hard times. Despite a lot of the lyrical subject matter being culled from a traumatic event, listening to this album is like being with a friend or a benevolent, comforting presence. Gentle, reassuring and fully human. Like a friend coming to pick you up after a fall. A masterful balance of slowness and substance. Just plain immaculate. I’ve returned time and time again to be wrapped up in this album’s universe. Feels like my favorite moments of sitting, watching people pass by, watching the shore, watching wind blow through trees.
3. BIG THIEF – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (2022)
Hitchhiking in an empty box car with a motley crew of migrants as it travels across a country whose foliage is regrowing after apocalypse.
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An era-defining rock record. An era-defining folk record. A record that makes an hour and 20 minutes feel like no time is wasted. An explosion of ideas where stylistic shifts don’t feel out of place, but rather welcomed and expected. A celebration of music and camaraderie that comes with it. Laughing in the face of seriousness, while still laying its ear down to the earth and listening to the murmuring bubbles from below the crust. Too many songs on here, even those deep in the record, I hit play on and instantly start humming along. This record is a portrait of a band at a creative peak, and hopefully glimpse into how much artistically higher they can go.
2. CHUQUIMAMANI-CONDORI – DJ E (2023)
20 million DJs all spinning a person’s favorite tunes at once during their funeral as their effigy is lifted into the sky by hundreds of paper lanterns.
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A record that has done nothing but grow on me since its release, giving me time to admire its deeper folds amongst its cosmic din. Chuquimamani-Condori’s (aka E+E aka Elysia Crampton) their greatest work yet, DJ E, is also their best exercise in maximalism. Indigenous South American folk instrumentation and traditions are woven into the present, as though a traditional band has set up shop next to three different DJ booths, all spinning different hybrids of electronic music and hip hop. Despite this overwhelming setup, it’s a tender, patient record. The moments of peace and introspection at the end are touching even on many repeated listens, and even in the more intense moments you can tell the care Chuquimamani-Condori has for their community and their sound is immense. So incredibly important.
1. CINDY LEE – What’s Tonight To Eternity (2020)
Mimicking the pirouettes and plies from an old black and white VHS recording of ballet in a decrepit, empty apartment building.
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Before Diamond Jubilee, there was What’s Tonight To Eternity. Here Cindy Lee’s obsession with the dusty corners of pop music’s past are still present, but moreso obscured and dissolved comparatively, opting for frequent dousings of oppressive sheets of noise, or uncanny distorted effects. The split between the paranoia and euphoria, the discovery and pursuit of pleasure within pain, the tragic tales of an already tragic figure – all come together in a memorable experience that’s stuck with me the last five years.
No other album transports me to such a unique and vivid world like this one does. What’s Tonight To Eternity is like nothing else. It’s a cinematic, dark journey through grief, self-flagellation, demons, sexuality, identity, finding hope through it all, and more. The album is damaged and beautiful, shimmering like a gold tinsel-lined dress under a milky spotlight. The dual destruction and worship of such storied American musical tropes is such a fascinating approach to noise pop, and has yielded the most inspiring album of the decade so far for me. It’s one of my most-listened to 2020s releases, consistently providing another realm to wander through for when this life became too heavy.
SOME STATS:
Records By Year Released:
2020: 21
2021: 23
2022: 25
2023: 16
2024: 15
2021 and 2022 really had it going on. Here’s a thought experiment: was the music better those years because I was physically active and mentally more healthy than I am now? Or is it because I’m looking more rosily upon those records comparatively to the newer ones? Only time will tell.
#1 Records By Year:
2020: Cindy Lee – What’s Tonight To Eternity?
2021: Cassandra Jenkins – An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
2022: Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You
2023: Chuquimamani-Condori – DJ E
2024: Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee
No changeups except for 2023, where DJ E stormed ahead of Sofia Kourtesis’ Madres, which still securely holds a spot within the Top 10 of the decade so far.
Records that Didn’t Place on my Top 50 List In The Year They Were Released:
a.s.o. – a.s.o.
Doss – Four New Hit Songs EP
Malibu – Palaces Of Pity EP
Tirzah – Colourgrade
Two Shell – Icons EP
You’ll Never Get To Heaven – Wave Your Moonlight Hat For The Snowfall Train
In this case, I merged my favorite EPs of the decade in with the albums, because they’re too damn good not to include, and there’s no way I’m making a “Best EPs of the 2020s” list. I may be a list maniac, but I’m not that depraved. Anyway, Malibu, Two Shell and Doss have all been on constant repeat for me throughout the 20s. Kassie Krut’s debut is the only other EP present, but I eliminated the EP list altogether in 2024.
a.s.o and You’ll Never Get To Heaven were both on my honorable mentions their years. Both were albums that I came across very late in the year so I had only spent at most a few days with them before publishing my Top 50 Albums list for that year. They’ve both since grown on me significantly, easily cementing themselves as favorites.
Tirzah and Colourgrade, though… man. I really hated this album upon its release. This album basically forced me to recalibrate my expectations going into highly anticipated records, which I think is a good thing at the end of the day. It disappointed me, but in the last two years I’ve found myself going back to it, especially after the release of 2023’s trip9love… ???, hearing “Tectonic” out in the world (great song), and especially finding new love in “Hive Mind (feat. Coby Sey),” a song I find so oddly romantic now. Tirzah will forever have my heart no matter what she puts out, it seems.
Thanks for reaching the bottom of this list! Now go listen to some music!
Warm Visions 