My 2019 in Music
See more year-end selections from the collective here.
Every day there’s something new to hear. The link from a friend. The streaming service playlist. The opening band. The coworker’s suggestion. The bandmate’s new favorite. The soundtrack to that film. And on and on.
There simply isn’t enough time to listen to everything.
Would it even be worth it to try? Would it be healthy to listen to so much music? Like I’m at a holiday feast trying to consume as much meat, veggies, bread, sauce, and booze as possible before falling asleep or vomiting? Not just to be full, but also so I can say I tasted everything?
Even if I tried, I’d surely wake up in the morning to my best friends raving about these dishes:
Caligula - Lingua Ignota
Titanic Rising - Weyes Blood
Two Hands - Big Thief
And I’d have to accept that I never tasted any of them.
Music can be many things — vibration, expression, etc. — but in 2019 I sometimes felt anxious that I too obsessively pursued, rated, reviewed, and wrapped releases up in lists without slowing down, opening myself up, being vulnerable and welcoming, giving everything a chance to breathe and exist for more than a couple thousand seconds.
I hope I took away a lesson. I hope I learned that I need to accept the decentralization not just of music creation but also of music discovery. One person can’t listen to everything. Trying is a losing battle. Just like Facebook isn’t good for real human connections, pretending to listen to every album released in a year won’t get you very close to any of them.
In short, a similar disclaimer to last year: This isn’t the ultimate guide to the best music of 2019, according to one human. It’s just a list of music I connected with in one way or another. And I hope you can connect to it too.
P.S. Here’s a mix if you’d rather listen than read. (Or listen while reading!)
ARTIST
Rosalía
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My introduction to Rosalía was a humble, black-and-white video in which she sings flamenco-style folk accompanied by a single guitarist with Picasso’s Guernica in the background. I loved it, but I never would have imagined that a year later she’d be performing a spellbinding blend of trap-meets-flamenco-meets-reggaeton at theaters packed to the brim with shrieking, adoring fans. But that’s exactly what happened. When the lights came up at the show in San Francisco, fans screamed her back onstage, where she sang Carlos Gardel’s tango classic “Volver” a cappella. I believe the kids say “shook” — that I was.
Though El Mal Querer, Rosalía’s second album, came out in 2018, it may as well be one of my favorite albums of 2019 too. But she didn’t stop there. This year, she released single after bomb ass single, checking off all the boxes: Best music video? Best reggaeton song? Second best reggaeton song? Best James Blake song? Coolest song you might hear at an overpriced Vegas club? Check, check, check, check, check.
She’s beautiful, she’s poetic, she’s controversial, she’s unabashedly playing homage to past legends while undoubtedly inspiring a new generation of musicians — and, most importantly, she has the voice of a goddess.
ALBUM / NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
Outer Peace - Toro y Moi
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Maybe I’m biased because of the Bay Area vibes, but the truth is I never listened to Toro y Moi until earlier this year, when flipping thru records at Amoeba SF, I had to figure out what was playing over the store’s soundsystem. It was this newly released album, a 30-minute, 10-minute track journey through r&b&dance. There are uppers (“Ordinary Pleasure, “Freelance”), chillers (“Miss Me,” “New House”), and everything in between. But the flow never drops.
ALBUM / SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
Amyl and the Sniffers - Amyl and the Sniffers
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While everyone else at Primavera Sound in Barcelona was watching Tame Impala grace the main stage w super indie psychedelia, me and about 50 other weirdos gathered at a teeny stage on the water to see Australian punks Amyl and the Sniffers. I have no regrets. Their self-titled album is their first full-length, and it’s fucking fire. It has the cheesy swagger of hair metal, the explosive riffs of your local punk band, and then, the cherry on top, Amy’s lyrics and voice, which strike with vengeance and precision.
ALBUM / BOPPING YOUR HEAD, 21ST CENTURY STYLE
GREY Area - Little Simz
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This is everything I want from hip hop. Chill grooves, catchy hooks, and a fierce flow. Though it was the fire of “Venom” that initially turned me onto Little Simz, she maintains the quality of her lyricism and delivery throughout the entire album. From MC Lyte to Saul Williams to Erykah and Kendrick, you can hear a whole range of voices influencing her sound — and compelling her to cook up something new.
ALBUM / KEEPING YOUR HEAD UP, 20TH CENTURY STYLE
Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) - Beth Gibbons & The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki
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Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons isn’t a classically trained singer. But she does have an incredible voice, seemingly built for longing and despair. And so perhaps it’s not too surprising that this 2014 recording at the National Opera Grand Theatre in Warsaw was a success. Performing Henryk Górecki’s extremely popular, “holy minimalist” third symphony (composed in 1976) meant that Gibbons had to learn the Polish text (she’s not a native speaker) and all the associated emotional weight of motherhood and separation during wartime. (The text of the second movement, for example, consists of a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II.) It’s dark music, probably darker than anything Portishead has ever done, but it’s executed with grace.
ALBUM / EURASIAN DANCE
Open Too Close - Will Saul
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Will Saul runs two record labels (that have released Joy Orbison, Carl Craig, and Leon Vynehall) and leads A&R for !K7 (including curation of the classic DJ-Kicks series). But that’s not what matters most to me. All I care about is that this album had me dancing my ass off in my underwear in the living room, working a sweat on just another Saturday.
ALBUM / NORTH AMERICAN DANCE
Sinner - Moodymann
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The Detroit techno legend returns with a diverse set of seven tracks, ranging from deep house to funky grooves to even a little jazz. Nothing’s off the table when you’re making dance music for the true music lovers.
ALBUM / BEAUTIFUL
Constellation in Still Time - Rafael Toral
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So many amazing ambient albums came out this year. I couldn’t keep track. But this one released just a month ago sounds like Brian Eno’s early work on Ambient 1: Music for Airports, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.
ALBUM / SUBLIME
The Sacrificial Code - Kali Malone
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10 songs, nearly two hours of minimalist organ music, never a dull moment.
ALBUM / COVER OF AN ALBUM
The Delta Sweete Revisited - Mercury Rev
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I didn’t know Mercury Rev a year ago. But I did know Norah Jones, Vashti Bunyan, and Phoebe Bridgers. And everyone should know Bobbie Gentry, a female country folk singer from the 60s whose Delta Sweete album has only been appreciated on the fringes of musical fandom. But maybe more people will know it since Mercury Rev teamed up with a dozen-plus of our favorite female vocalists to cover the album in full, bringing modern production and traditional spirit together in a melting pot of folk rock love.
ALBUM / AN ALBUM OF COVERS
Celia - Angelique Kidjo
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A year after her brilliantly executed cover of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo returns with a collection of Celia Cruz covers. Once again, Kidjo reinforces and raises awareness of the African influence in our favorite music, while also respecting the unique ways in which the artist (previously David Byrne, now Afro-Cuban all-star Celia Cruz) spun those African rhythms, melodies, and harmonies into something completely unique. But don’t think this album is just an education — it’s more like a dance party.
ALBUM / DUBBED OUT ACROSS THE WORLD
Hasta El Cielo - Khruangbin
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Once again, the ultimate Texan-yet-Thai-inspired chill grooves band delivers, this time with an album that leans toward Jamaica with a dozen dub reworks of the songs from last year’s Con Todo El Mundo. The Scientist dub is an extra special treat.
ALBUM / FOLKED OUT ON AN ISLAND
Islands - Erin Durant
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Way back in 1970, Joni Mitchell took a break from success by running off to Europe. While on the island of Crete in Greece, she wrote a couple songs (including “California”) that would later appear on best-album-ever Blue. 49 years later, I was lucky enough to journey to a couple Greek islands with a gaggle of my old classmates, their significant others, and my cousin. It was easily one of the best trips of my life, and one of my favorite parts was when, on the last night on Syros, my vacation wife Maddy demanded that we finally listen to some peaceful-not-party music… like Joni Mitchell. So we did. Back home two weeks later, I pressed play on New York-based singer-songwriter Erin Durant’s new album Islands, and I fell in love. With gentle drumming, ethereal piano playing, and gorgeous happy-sad singing, it quickly became my favorite folk album of 2019.
SINGLE / AFRICAN
“Tende II” - Les Filles de Illighadad
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Half a year ago, I didn’t know what a “tende” was. Now I know it’s a drum “built from a goat skin stretched across a mortar and pestle.” Moreover, it’s the primary percussive instrument used in traditionally woman-led “tende music,” accompanied by just handclaps and voices. On this recording, we hear the voices of Les Filles de Illighadad, a Tuareg band from a village in the Sahara Desert in Niger. Across seven-plus minutes, supporting voices swirl in and out of unison with the leader’s voice, weaving an entrancing meditation, a sung prayer.
SINGLE / APOCALYPSE
“New World” - Tacocat
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There are so many new and exciting ways to interpret the end of the world, especially since it feels as present as it did in the 80s, when nukes were everyone’s mind. Back then, one of the best songs to capture the feeling was made by Prince, who seemed to accept the end because it was You could criticize this song for dreaming instead of encouraging action, but here are its best counter arguments: 1) Many of us already take action 2) but still feel hopeless yet 3) need a way to continue imagining the world we want to live in.
SINGLE / BERLIN
“Bodied [OG Mix]” by Ikonika
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All due love to Berlin-based electronic musicians Laurel Halo and Peggy Gou for two excellent DJ-Kicks mixes this year. Given that they’re both based in one the world’s techno capitals and both released sick mixes featuring a couple of my favorite discoveries, I was thinking of leaving this as a tie — but turns out Peggy Gou’s selection “EPR Phenomena” (by DMX Krew) actually came out six years ago. So we’ll go with the beautiful, brutal “Bodied.”
SINGLE / COMPUTER
“Violence” - Grimes & i_o
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I hadn’t listened to deadmau5 in years when I pressed play on the new Grimes single. Instantly I remembered that sound. The sound of crisp, clean layers of progressive house being added one on top of the other while shimmery vocals take you on a transcendent journey. I like it like that and I like it like that.
SINGLE / COVER
“Doin’ Time” - Lana del Rey
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Sublime was essential to my teenage life, so I’m all about this.
SINGLE / DANCE OVER 120 BPM
“Only Human” - Four Tet
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All the true underground heads were done with this one years ago, but now us plebeians can enjoy it now that Four Tet finally cleared the Nelly Furtado sample. It’s almost mind-numbingly simple, but it’s all in the production: pristine house beats, ecstatic vocal section, and the best drops — even when you know they’re coming.
SINGLE / DANCE UNDER 120 BPM
“Incapable” - Roisin Murphy
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What if you could pretend you “never had a broken heart”? As if no one had “ever seen you fall apart”? Then I guess you could groove to cool disco on the dance floor for a solid 8.5 minutes, eyes closed, hands outstretched, breathing deep and two-stepping to eternity .This song is proof that you can lie all you want as long as you do it over a funky bassline. Reminds me of 1982 disco underground classics in its attention to detail and seductive minimalism. It’s not going anywhere and that’s perfectly alright.
SINGLE / DUET
“Please Me” - Bruno Mars & Cardi B
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As on “Finesse,” sparks fly when these two pop stars pretend to be in love. Bruno Mars can bore me but that’s why you need Cardi B to bring the DGAF attitude with Ye-like lines (“your pussy basura, my pussy horchata!).
SINGLE / FIRST
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“Unshaken” _ D’Angelo
Remember when D’Angelo released a new song in 2019? Maybe not. Even if you’d heard the song, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about it since it dropped only four days into the year. I didn’t forget though — and that’s why it’s on the list. A dark, rumbling spiritual, “Unshaken” struck a chord the first time I heard it. Nearly a year later, the magic has yet to fade.
SINGLE / FOLK
“Pysol My Castle” - Cross Record
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Where ambient music meets folk music, a young woman whisper-sings as if in a dream: “Put your shoes on, leave my castle.”
SINGLE / HIP HOP
“uknowhatimsayin¿” - Danny Brown
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You gotta hear it to see why it’s still playing… know what I’m sayin?
SINGLE / HOLIDAY
“<demonz>” - Kim Petras
Expanding upon the first EP released in 2018, German pop artist Kim Petras released the second volume of TURN OFF THE LIGHT on October 1 to usher in the best holiday season with horror-themed house music and icy, crystalline pop. One of the shortest pieces on the album, “<demonz>” is instrumental dance pop in its darkest form — the kind of thing you might hear if you took the wrong drug at two in the morning and couldn’t find your friends.
SINGLE / JAZZ
“Down with the Clique” - Solange
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I wrote this entry last. Not because I was unsure about it, but because I was so sure about it that I knew I could fit almost any song from the album into the corresponding year-end mix. When I found an empty spot in the mix, I found a song that would fit, and here’s the song. But really the whole album is great. It’s not A Seat at the Table Part II, and that’s a great thing. Solange wants to experiment with new ideas, musically and lyrically, and though the experiment may not have resulted in an instant classic, she has created something great. This isn’t jazz, you say? Jazz is hip hop is soul is souls creating in unison and solo a new way of speaking that sounds like melody meeting rhythm meeting the end of the bar and improvising the refrain. And so I’m down with the clique.
SINGLE / THE KITCHEN SINK
“Real Truth” - J-E-T-S feat. Tkay Maidza
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This year, a few friends of mine became a bit more proactive about swapping music we loved and throwing parties together. We adopted the perhaps-not-super-original nickname “The Kitchen Sink” because we love to listen to everything. Actually. I’m giving this release the TKS award not because we all loved this the most, but because for me it represents what we’re about: bringing a bevy of styles together into something new and exciting. J-E-T-S is a collaboration between Jimmy Edgar and Travis Stewart (Machinedrum), two artists that have dabbled in techno, house, IDM, bass, hip hop, R&B, and pop. What is their new album ZOOSPA? It is all those things and also something strange, new, invented. My favorite track was “Real Truth.”
SINGLE / LATIN
“Cariñito” - Lila Downs
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The main hook translated: “Never, never abandon me, baby.” How can such a sad song be so celebratory? Maybe that’s why this song always hits hard, because it’s Mexican musician Lila Downs precisely matching the painfully ecstatic, ecstatically painful feeling of love.
SINGLE / POP
“Juicy” - Doja Cat
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Sugar production, sexy voice, and an unbelievably catchy chorus. Let’s play it 45 times in a row!
SINGLE / (FAKE) POP
“On a Roll” - Ashley O
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Nobody ever believes the fake pop stars in TV shows because their songs always suck. The producers behind “Black Mirror” are smarter: instead of trying to create a great song from scratch, they lifted the music from Nine Inch Nails hit “Head Like a Hole,” replaced the anguish and noise with optimism and sparkle, and put pink-wigged Miley Cyrus on the mic. Sorry Lil Nas X, but in spite of all those “record” “sales,” your song wasn’t the best example of NIN repurposing this year.
SINGLE / QUEEN
“Tempo” - Lizzo feat. Missy Elliott
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Dozens of catchy pop stars want our attention. But, as far as I’m concerned, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, and the rest can step aside. Lizzo ruled 2019. While all her hits deserve attention, the midsummer feature with Missy Elliott made me the happiest. It hardly even makes sense. She says “slow songs, they for skinny hoes” on a song that’s under 110 BPM. So either she’s sick of high school slow dances or she’s just fucking with us. Either way, it’s a blast.
SINGLE / REGGAE
“Cry for Another” - Claude Fontaine
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Chill nobody LA singer (white/female) somehow assembles a backing band of roots reggae master musicians (black/male). The result? Instant classic.
SINGLE / REWORK
“Baby Wants to Ride” - Frankie Knuckles & Eric Kupper feat. Jamie Principle
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House legend Frankie Knuckles and Eric Kupper teamed up this year to produce the epic 28-track Director’s Cut, compiling reworks of familiar classics like “The Whistle Song,” “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” and “Bourgie Bourgie.” But it’s Frankie’s original monster “Baby Wants to Ride” that gets me the most… excited. It has brand new vocals and beats but there’s one thing it hasn’t touched: the sweat and sex. It’s insistent, irresistible, and 10 minutes long.
SINGLE / SAN FRANCISCO
“You Laugh at My Face [Tobias. Version]” - Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras
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Thanks to Dark Entries, Honey Soundsystem, and a healthy adoration for the underground disco sounds of 1980s San Francisco, we are being treated to a ton of unreleased material by disco pioneer Patrick Cowley. In 2018 came Catholic, a collection of tunes with Hi-NRG as its nexus but boundaries unseen. It’s definitely worth a listen, but my favorite thing to come out of it was “You Laugh at My Face,” especially the Tobias. version with that golden boom bap hip hop beat layered on top.
SINGLE / THROWBACK
“A No No [Remix] - Mariah Carey feat. Stefflon Don
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If some of us are overly nostalgic for 90s hip hop and R&B, so be it. Sampling Lil’ Kim’s “Crush on You” (the track that actually only has Lil’ Cease on it with Notorious B.I.G. doing the chorus), “A No No” smartly lifts the beat without messing it up. Add Mariah’s voluptuous voice and Stefflon Don’s flow, and we’re cruising.
SINGLE / UNDERAGE
“You Should See Me in a Crown” - Billie Eilish
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Everyone already moved on from the fact that she released this album at 17 years old. But… holy fuck. She released this album at 17 years old! Her brother’s bedroom production only gives itself away with its simplicity, but that’s part of what makes it so good: it lets Billie’s voice shine and gives the rest of us a break from pop’s excessively overconstructed castles of sound.
SINGLE / 7”
“It Rains Love” - Lee Fields & the Expressions
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Instead of specifying the genre (funk/soul), I put this in the 7" category specifically because that’s the feeling it evokes. With a little surface noise, it could sound like it’s from 1962. Who is that singer? I know that voice. Those lyrics sound so familiar. But maybe you don’t know who it is, and most likely you’ve never heard these exact lyrics: It’s an older, experienced man named Lee Fields singing a simple song about love. And he’s back by the Expressions. Much love to Big Crown Records in New York for keeping the old-school soul vibes flowing on this and many other releases.
BONUS / LIVE
Sunn O)))
Putting aside Rosalía at the Regency Ballroom, my favorite live performance this year was by Sunn O))) at the Fillmore SF. For nearly two hours, the high priests of doom metal blessed us with a sound bath akin to therapy or meditation. It was as much ceremony and spectacle as it was performance: before the band even took the stage, fog machines like artillery blasted out smoke into the venue, at times even disappearing the people standing right next to you.
At last, the band emerged and began strumming their deep, slow chords. Each member performed in their characteristic black hooded robes, epically raising their fists and picks to the air before each strum. (With the same ceremonial gusto, they would pass around a bottle of wine to one another throughout the set.) There were moments of heavy, dark drone, and then there were moments when the guitar crunch and bass kicked into overdrive, summoning invisible beasts under the earth, whose slow, gargantuan movements vibrated our bodies.
But it isn’t simply pure volume that makes Sunn O))) so incredible. It’s that infinitely definable quality of sound we call “tone.” Precisely because so little “happens” in minimalist music, every detail matters. Timing — rhythm and duration. The occasional wail of feedback. The velocity of the strum. Even the split second scrape of fingers sliding down the frets. And, in the middle of the set, a haunting saxophonist soloing in a single cone of yellow light.
BONUS / ONE IN 1001
Fun House - The Stooges
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This album didn’t come out in 2019. Maybe you already knew that. But you may not know that I’m just completing year four of a 20-year project to dedicate every week to a single selection from the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Next summer, this album turns 50 years old. And it still fucking rocks. From the stomping funk of opening track “Down on the Street” to the final moments of noise and destruction on “L.A. Blues,” it’s no wonder why everyone considers this one of the first milestones in punk rock.
