And The Valley Ranks: Top 10 Albums Of The Year (& Lagniappe)

Our yearly roundtable highlighting our favorite musical highlights of the year that was.

Adam

Albums of the Year

10) Cheekface | It’s Sorted

The word “irreverent” doesn’t begin to describe Cheekface’s music, nor does the word “satirical”. Their music is so caked in irony and self-depreciating humor that it actually boomerangs back into being incredibly earnest.

But there are hundreds of sarcastic speak-singing bands with some poignant observations to be wry about (see: Yard Act’s Where’s My Utopia, which just missed this list). As fun as the goofy and witty one-liners can be, the real draw of It’s Sorted is the musical chops behind the microphone that are as equally sharp and off-beat as the lyrics. On the album the band’s Talking Heads influences are extremely noticeable. In fact, I would say that if you took the members of Talking Heads and teleported them into 2023, this is the album that they would come out with.

There are also some ska and pop elements such as horns and some bouncy synths, but the album really peaks with the band keeping it simple with the basic trio of guitar, bass and drums. The first time you heard the album, the lyrics really hold center stage but with each passing listen the guitar playing really demands more and more attention.

On the opening song “The Fringe”, they croon that “Success is cringe! Success is cringe! I wanna be on the fringe!”. Unfortunately, they are far too good of a band to be unsuccessful, but it is a serendipitous joy that they landed at #10 on my list. Mission accomplished.

9) Billie Eilish | HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is Billie Eilish’s third album, and the third with production credited to her brother which leads me to feel like it’s time for the two to take an album off. Not because the album is bad – it’s in my top ten albums of the year – but because the best parts of the album (and Eilish’s discography in general) happen when Finneas provides a beat or production elements that are so clearly top-notch or catchy that’s it’s getting harder to parse who the real star of the show is here.

The first two tracks on the album signify this good problem to have:

“SKINNY” is a laid-back intro where Billie’s soft voice sounds nice, but there’s not too much in the way of substance. It’s not a bad track, there are some nice strings on the back end, but it doesn’t do much to stand out or be memorable.

Crash cut to “LUNCH”. Energetic yet sultry, smooth with some James Bond guitars, like being hit on at a piano bar: “I don’t want to break it, just want it to bend…do you know how to bend.” In a really good year for pop songs, I think this may be the best pop song that came out in 2024.

The album takes this extreme to the tentpole of the tracklist, “L’ARMOUR DE MA VIE”, a cut that starts with a guitar-driven track that builds as the song progresses until it lands on a trojan horse outro that serves as a transition to a HEAVY synth-based electropop banger, hitting us both hard and soft in one song. Hey, that’s the name of the album!

8) MGMT | Loss of Life

MGMT have pulled one of the most interesting turns in contemporary music: they’ve gone from a band who makes upbeat bangers that are actually depressing as hell (which is what most people know them for) (except for “Electric Feel”) to a band who make dark-sounding songs that actually earnest and even a little hopeful, bucking the seemingly human nature to grow more jaded as we get older. Quite to the opposite effect, there are a few lamentations on how the narrator missed out on so much joy when they were busy being pretentious and cynical in their youth, as on “Bubblegum Dog”.

But the album sounds dark and it honestly takes a few listens for the true meaning for the album to take hold. I think that’s the larger point that MGMT intended to make, as clearly signaled on “Nothing Changes” with the following passage: “And maybe you’d have heard if you’d stopped fucking around/When it was time to stop pretending”. The band probably lost fans when they stopped making fun songs that were sincere at heart, so it’s time to make sincere sound sincere, but true to form they have to mask how the message comes across.

And of course, as an MGMT album, the music is meticulously crafted and extremely high-quality.

7) Sturgill Simpson (d.b.a. Johnny Blue Skies) | Passage du Desir

Early in his career, after A Sailor’s Guide To Earth’s underdog GRAMMY nomination, the phrase “Who The Fuck Is Sturgill Simpson” became not just a meme but a rallying cry for Nashville’s last great outlaw.

Flash forward nearly a decade and I think Sturgill may actually be asking that question himself. Why he decided to release this album under his Johnny Blue Skies moniker I have no idea because otherwise this is the most “normal” Stug album we’ve gotten since Sailor’s Guide (since: two bluegrass cover albums of his own songs, a vintage country western album, and an album that defies labelling itself).

Nowhere is this more evident than the yacht-rock inspired “Scooter Blues” where he daydreams about leaving it all behind to be a beach bum father: “Gonna hop on my scooter and go down to the store/When people say ‘are you him?’/I’ll say not anymore/With the wind in my hair I’m gonna scooter my blues away”. Sounds a man who knows exactly who he is and who he wants to be, but the two are at odds.

But he’s Sturgill Fucking Simpson, who will go down as one of the greatest artists of this generation and every track on this album delivers. He’s at his most Sturgill Simpson on “Jupiter’s Faerie”, a ballad that begins on Earth as a lamination that he was too late to make amends with an old friend before they passed on, so he takes his sorrow into space and hope that he is deep into the cosmic unknown, uncovering the secrets it holds.

6) Jamie xx | In Waves

I’ll keep this simple: this album makes me happy and its fun to listen to.

It’s much more of a uncut house music album than his solo debut genre-bending and groundbreaking In Colour, which leads it to be a little more consistent in sound throughout. All of which occur with Jamie’s polish and creative prowess on full display. The album opens up for more collaborations from other artists, both in the vocals and instrumentation.

It’s a record that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is uncut up until the end, with contributions from Panda Bear, The Avalanches, and Robyn, the latter who especially goes together like peanut butter with Jamie’s jelly instrumentals. But on the closing track “Falling Together” we see a more direct intonation courtesy of Irish dancer Oona Doherty providing a monologue on our interconnectedness. It’s a nice way to end a house album, an uplifting reminder to be open to each other and new experiences.

Lastly, I find it hilarious that there’s a song on the album with Romy and Oliver Sim that isn’t billed as a The xx song. John, Paul, George, and Ringo are reuniting but it IS NOT a Beatles song.

5) Charli XCX | BRAT

For the vast majority of her career, Charli XCX has been the torchbearer for the hyperpop movement, the blending of electropop and up-tempo dance elements. I would say that BRAT should still be considered hyperpop, but it is a noticeable cut back from the more experimental sound she’s been on the cutting edge of. It’s the basics of what led to hyperpop, a more direct fusion of pop and dance music.

And because of it, BRAT is indomitable. It became not only the soundtrack of the summer but a cultural movement, a much-needed release for the youth of western culture who keep having the innocence of their youth robbed from them in new, creative ways. The vibrant highlighter green was everywhere in a way that few albums are anymore.

And it’s not hard to see why this album connected so well with so many. It’s inherently hedonistic, being naked in the desire to fucking party. But it also has these moments of wondering if the party is worth the hangover and the drama that can follow it: “I think about it all the time” is a starkly candid weighing of Charli’s partygirl persona coming at the expense of her desire to have children and slow down, if only a bit. In the shadow of the Drake-Kendrick blood feud, Charli came together with Lorde to sort out their misconceptions of each other on the remix of the insecure “Girl, so confusing.” To call it purely a party record is to sell it short, no matter how much “360” and “365” will be well-worn out in boiler room sets.

In that respect, BRAT falls in the family as the younger sister of Whatever People Say, That’s What I’m Not and ironically enough, Melodrama, two albums (I personally love) who approach the same concept from different angles like siblings navigating the same obstacles in life.

4) Tyler, The Creator | CHROMAKOPIA

Tyler, The Creator’s arc from edgelord shock artist to a shocking vulnerable internal narrative artist has long been complete. Tyler is a long way from Flower Boy and IGOR in that now he is comfortable with who he is, and a confident Tyler is a dangerous weapon.

His last album, Call Me If You Get Lost, was really indulgent in his desire to have a Gangster Grillz mixtape, so CHROMAKOPIA reads as a sort of part II to IGOR. He’s still wearing his heart on his sleeves and talking about real-word issues such as accidentally getting a girl whom he has no strong feelings for pregnant (“Hey Jane”), wondering if he’s capable of monogamy (“Darling, I”) and wondering if he’s ever going to end up making the same mistakes his father made (“Like Him”).

But it’s still a Tyler, The Creator so it’s on another level production-wise and he’s more than okay with pulling the door off the hinges. Like on the synth-heavy psych-rock inspired “Noid”, the ScHoolboy Q and Santigold-featuring banger “Thought I Was Dead” which is built around mariachi-sounding horns, and of course, “Sticky”, the song he made hoping to hear an HBCU band play where he assembled the best current freestyle rappers over a cafeteria table beat.

3) Kendrick Lamar | GNX

“Fuck a double entendre, I want y’all to feel this shit” Kendrick states on the opening track, a promise of what’s to come.

GNX is Kendrick’s most straightforward album, and for good reason as he has a LOT to say. Coming off the heels of his dismantling of Drake, much of the album is Kendrick issuing an open challenge for anybody else to challenge his spot on the throne, be it by documenting how easy it was for him to body Drake (“squabble up”, “hey now”, “tv off”) or by listing the overwhelming body of evidence that support his claim to be the GOAT (“man at the garden”).

But it’s not all a victory lap. Like most Kendrick albums, what really elevates the album are the high-level concepts, most notable “reincarnated” where Kendrick studies the lives of successful black artists that came before him, notably John Lee Hooker and Billie Holliday, learning lessons from both of their careers to avoid the trappings of greed and fleshly sins that marred their career and legacy only to end with a conversation with God where he has to come face to face with his own personal shortcomings.

There is also “heart pt. 6” – a concept which Drake tried to take from Kendrick during the hostilities – in which Kendrick remanences on the heyday of TDE and ultimately how he was the reason the Black Hippie collective didn’t take off.

Sonically, it’s Kendrick’s most west coast album, expanding from the typical Los Angeles synth-heavy 808 sound to also include some Bay Area hyphy sounds throughout, arguably the latter providing the most memorable moments.

2) Vampire Weekend | Only God Was Above Us

Vampire Weekend will go down and one the best bands of this generation, and it’s because they inhabit a space only they can. Their sound plays a large part of it, a garage band of tweedy prep-school honors English students who can – and do – include a full orchestra at times, but use secondhand equipment to put the symphony to tape. A lot of bands can visit that space or do a rough imitation, but only Vampy Weeks can do Vampire Weekend.

Which is why 2019’s Father of the Bride was such a noticeable departure for Vampire Weekend. With time, it became one of my favorite albums of all time, but it felt like Vampire Weekend changing and trying on new clothes, being far more conceptual. With Only God Was Above Us, VW are back to their east coast-centric tweed pop that defined their early heyday – with one caveat: they’re all older and more mature.

The artistic and creative license that the band ventured to find with great success on 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City and FOTB remains, forming a marriage with their old sound that results in the MOST Vampire Weekend album.

Of course, as an Ezra Koenig production, there are a lot of meat to chew on the bone from a lyrical perspective, such as “each generation makes its own apology” on “Gen-X Cops” or “(it’s) untrue, unkind and unnatural/How the cruel, with time, becomes classical” on “Classical”.

Album of the Year: Magdalena Bay | Imaginal Disc

Every now and then, an album comes along that’s unlike anything you’ve heard before and you instantly know will have a profound impact on the music that follows it. Imaginal Disc is that album for me.

Pulling back the curtain: I try to keep these writeups to about 250 words, but I don’t know how I can possibly begin to touch on everything I want to regarding this album in that number of words. To properly do this album justice would require 2,500 words at a minimum. But here goes nothing:

Sonically, the album is diverse. Way more diverse than should be possible while maintaining a sense of cohesion. To use a football analogy, the group runs a base defense of a synthpop sound but disguises with a plethora of different sounds. There are ABBA disco influences competing with thumping bass drops lifted straight from Electric Forest, triphop, and plenty of psychedelic influences and even some vaporwave cues. The album is so layered with so many small details that are easy to lose and shouldn’t match up as well as they do.

The lyrics can be like a fever dream, but much like the music takes a lot of disparate parts and forms cohesion out of them, results a really thoughtful and rewarding experience. Sometimes the lyrics are a little more pointed and sometimes they’re a little more abstract. There are a run of songs on the album that can be tied together to create a pretty clear narrative of someone lost in love and their journey towards self-realization (“Death & Romance”, “Fear, Sex”, “Vampire in the Corner”, “Tunnel Vision”) and then there is whatever the fuck “That’s My Floor” is about. Sometimes the lyrics are self-referential and meta, including the epic intro and outro to the album.

I believe Imaginal Disc is up for interpretation conceptually, and your read of it may be different than mine. But when listening to the disparate parts and piece of the music, the visuals create for the album, and the lyrical content, I think this is Mag Bay’s dissertation on AI’s place in art. An advanced AI could take such mismatched influences and sounds and place them together, but it takes a human to truly understand the emotions that are associated with those inputs to tie them all together into a sound that is cohesive.

Which brings me to the bow that ties the record together: lead singer Mica Tenenbaum’s vocal performance. You won’t think that she’s Whitney Houston, but she brings a passion and emotion to every single line on every song that really elevates the whole thing to another level. There is a melody that serves as a leitmotif throughout the record, and every time she returns to it with a different energy that still manages to convey the same emotion that itself is a weird mixture of melancholy and celebratory. Thanks to Mica’s performance in contrast to the insane creativity from Matthew Lewin, there is a humanity to the album that leaves a profound impact and sticks with you.

(486 words, if you were wondering)

Artist of the Year

Kendrick Lamar

Honorable Mentions: Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Sturgill Simpson

Well, this was a Charli XCX or Chappell Roan debate until Thanksgiving. I was ready to weigh the merits of Chappell’s meteoric rise to fame and the controversies she’s ran into while struggling with said newfound fame against Charli’s absolute domination of an entire season. But then, Kendrick Lamar surprised dropped and capped off one of the best five-tweet runs of all time:

Besides being one of Kendrick Lamar’s best albums to date – which itself is a wild sentence to unpack – GNX capped off Kendrick Lamar’s show-stopping 2024 by landing the finishing blow to his all-timer of a feud with Drake which saw him share equal, if not greater, discourse with Chappell and Charli, and ending any discussion of his status as the best rapper of his generation.

Furthermore, I believe GNX coupled with the systematic dismantling of an industry titan are the final resume points needed to call Kendrick Lamar the greatest rapper of all time. No other rapper has the talent, cultural sway, respect and/or fear of his peers, consistency, diversity, catalogue, and longevity that Kendrick Lamar does. It’s not a debate or discussion any more.

There is no equal and there never has been. Kendrick Lamar is the man at the garden, the GOAT.

Song of the Year

Vampire Weekend | “Hope”

The nearly 8-minute finale to Vampy Weeks’ Only God Was Above Us is disarming in more than one way. Ezra Koenig is intentional when it comes to song writing, and the run time of the song alone is enough to let you that this isn’t just fluff at the end of the record but the tying knot on the whole thing, and ultimately what he wants you to walk away from the record with.

And it’s something worth reflecting on, with the repeating refrain of “I hope you let it go.” In between, he references an invincible enemy and outcomes that shouldn’t be, but are, such as a killer being freed and a matador being gored.

It’s in this face of the undefeatable outcomes that Ezra bitterly wishes that we let go of things that we cannot control in the name of self-preservation, holding out with hope that we ourselves give up hope. The song acknowledges that while there are things worth fighting in the world there comes a point where if we keep giving ourselves up in the name of fighting against it, we are met with diminishing returns. The song toes the line between two things that shouldn’t be placed so closely together, nilhism and the belief that our happiness and well-being is paramount to all. There’s no point in being a martyr for a cause that will not remember you.

It can be read as a political statement – or more aptly an apolitical one – but while the song if rife with political metaphors it was released in April, well before the political cycle ramped up in toxicity. It has certainly taken on a different life post-election but in actuality it is a broad warning that in all things in life, that which is beyond your control should not control you.

The prophet said we’d disappear

The prophet’s gone, but we’re still here

His prophecy was insincere

I hope you let it go

The righteous rage was foolish pride

The conquerors did not divide

The call keeps coming from inside

I hope you let it go

POSEUR

It was a fun year for new music. As I get even older, I drift further and further away from the zeitgeist and that’s totally fine with me. I’m at the point where I don’t even know who is popular anymore. My kids aren’t quite old enough to be trying out new stuff beyond the true megastars like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift.

I don’t have any idea what the trends are anymore, just the stuff I like, and it’s liberating. Something pops up on a stream, and if I like it, it gets added to the Spotify playlist. If I don’t… hey, maybe it will catch my ear later. Like what you like.

Honorable mentions. No need to mention stuff that doesn’t need promoting. Get this… Kendrick Lamar and Sturgill Simpson are still good. But here’s some stuff I discovered this year I couldn’t put on my list which could use a boost:

Pouty, Forget About Me; Towa Bird, American Hero; Personal Trainer, Still Willing; Ducks Ltd., Harm’s Way; Teens In Trouble, What’s Mine.

In the same vein, here are some bands who aren’t huge and I’ve ranked in the top 10 before, and put out a record I really liked this year:

Porridge Radio, Clouds in the Sky They Will Always Be There for Me; Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice; Being Dead, EELS; Pom Pom Squad, Mirror Starts Moving Without Me; Charly Bliss, Forever

OK, on to the list.

10 JACK WHITE No Name

What started as the equivalent of a small batch release instead grew and grew by word of mouth. Originally a surprise, untitled vinyl-only release directly from Third Man Records, it kept growing in demand until finally White gave it an official release. Jack White gets tagged as a grump sometimes, but I think this fundamentally misunderstands the man. He is a passionate advocate for the tactile experience of art and let’s face it, his argument is losing, as we drift more and more towards electronic music but also streaming releases. What’s there that you can touch and hold on to? White has the freedom to experiment however he wants, and that’s cool, but he returns to his roots and released a simple rock n roll record in the vein of the White Stripes. Play it loud.

9 MOURN The Avoider

A pop-punk band from Spain, Mourn has always flown a bit under the radar. This is a band that feels like they are growing into their adulthood, having put out a few albums as the grew up from teenagers together. There’s the obligatory addition of drum and bass on a few tracks, but this is still the same cheery sounding but actually depressed sound that makes for a terrific pop-punk release. It’s not remaking the wheel, but instead taking it for a roll.

8 COMBAT Stay Golden

A friend of mine sent me a text to check these guy out, and boy was he right. He also told me to check out Bad Moves, who just missed my list because I didn’t want it to go his head. Still, it gets a boost because there’s something to the way we discover music. There’s nothing like the community telling you, rather than some random blogger… oh, wait. Anyway, Combat made a little-heard debut record, and then followed it up with this, a concept record about the making of the first record. OK, it’s a bit meta, but its fun as hell.

7 RED CLAY STRAYS Made by These Moments

Country music is so much more socially acceptable in the hip circles when it can be repackaged as Americana or bluegrass. The Red Clay Strays had already built their reputation on their live shows and have pulled down a Billboard Award for the Best Country Group, but this is the first time it feels like their enthusiastic shows have translated to a recording. Part of that is producer Dave Cobb, who is like the official touch of country cool, having produced the breakout records for Brandi Carlisle, Sturgill Simpson, and Jason Isbell. He’s done it again. This is a raucous bluegrass record that I dare you not to tap your toes to.

6 ILLUMINATION HOTTIES Power

Speaking of awesome producers, Sarah Tudzin has made a name for herself as an indie rock star producer for the likes of boygenius, Pom Pom Squad, and Weyes Blood. She turns to her own project here, and bares her soul of what its like to be niche famous but still struggling to make it all work. She pulls in some indie rock friends (Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz appears on “What’s the Fuzz”, for example), but it still always feels like Tudzin’s voice. I’ll always be a sucker for power pop, and this album hits my pleasure centers.

5 POUTY Forgot About Me

Rachel Gagliardi is already a veteran of the brat punk scene, but she’s always seemed to just miss out on the big break. Her former bandmate went on to Japanese Breakfast, who’ve gone on to modest success. Well, she finally found it on her debut release and man, I hope it finds an audience. The album feels like a teen girl confessional written by a twentysomething, looking back clearly on her childhood and trying not to wince. The sickly sweet sound and power chords make it go down nice.

4 EKKO ASTRAL pink balloons

This year’s weirdo, experimental punk entry. Look, Ekko Astral is not for everybody, but if it’s for you, it’s very much for you. There’s a clear activist streak in the band, as Jael Holzman works a day job as a climate reporter, watching the world burn itself to death. But instead of the usual dour hectoring that DC punks can be famous for (sorry, Fugazi), the goal here is how also to be fun. Consider this the dance band for the end of the world. See, and I almost got through that whole blurb without mentioning she’s a trans woman screaming into the void about a dying world trying to edit her out of existence.

3 SIERRA FERRELL Trail of Flowers

Country music is inherently traditional. But while that can be seen as a negative in today’s almost amnesiac culture, what’s great about Ferrell is that she tries to back in the glow of the comforts of the familiar. She’s putting out a 1960’s country record, before we started covering everything up with studio excess. It’s a simple production for simple songs and powerful yet simple, direct lyrics. It’s a beautiful record that lets me stop the world for a moment and enjoy its simple pleasures. This album makes me feel good about the world, if only for a few moments,

2 FONTAINES DC Romance

I’ve always resented the way the music press has treated Fontaines DC. They put out a good punk record as their debuted, and were immediately praised for moving away from the sound. As if the only way to be mature is to stop being the very thing that attracted people to you in the first place. But you know what? The transformation to an indie band is complete and they are f’n awesome. “Starburster” is the kind of single, full of bluster and swagger, that I just can’t stop playing. The caterpillar was beautiful, but so is the butterfly they’ve become.

1 MJ LENDERMAN Manning Fireworks

We’re just living in MJ Lenderman’s world. I love Steven Hyden’s argument that Lenderman makes porch records, and he’s totally right. This is the album you put on when your friends come over to sit on the back porch, drink some beers, and maybe smoke the herb of their choice. He tells stories of regular life, and finds the simple pleasures and common bonds in those things. So much of pop culture these days seems focused on escapism, but Lenderman looks around the world and finds those overlooked things worth celebrating and enjoying. Be a dude.

Have fun, y’all. Here’s the playlist. Find your own loves.

EVAN

I’m not going to do a Top 10 like Adam and Poseur because 99% of my music diet is all the same songs I loved in 2008 still on repeat. Instead I will do a Top 5 with some Honorable Mentions which are 2023 albums that I kept listening to this year.

Honorable Mentions (aka 2023 albums with staying power)

Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS

Favorite song: “all-american bitch”

Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess

Favorite song: “Pink Pony Club”

The Beaches – Blame My Ex

Favorite song: “Blame Brett”

THE ACTUAL TOP 5

5. The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstacy

Indie rock doesn’t always do it for me, but something about this British newcomer hits me different. Spotify kept throwing “Nothing Matters” into my mixes for several months, and I never complained. I appreciated the jam, but when I heard “Caesar on a TV Screen” and “The Feminine Urge,” I felt like my car was lifting off the ground and soaring through the air on my way to work. Whatever TLDP releases next, I’ll be there Day One.

Favorite song: “Caesar on a TV Screen”

4. Kendrick Lamar – GNX

I wonder if in a few years some people will Mandela Effect that Kendrick’s brutal diss tracks from Spring were a part of this album. If they were, this would undoubtedly be my No. 1. As Adam already stated, 2024 was the Year of Kendrick, and casually dropping an album with no warning that didn’t even include your smash hit of the Summer was the coronation. I’m not crazy about some of the features, but Kendrick is just an another level musically right now. Spotify did not pay me to say that. They don’t have to.

Favorite song: “squabble up”

3. Charli XCX – BRAT

I didn’t really get Charli prior to 2024. I liked a handful of songs, especially the one in the Barbie movie last year, but club music was just never my taste. I knew this one was gonna be a hit though. That cover was just too good in a specifically 2024 way. I didn’t expect it would hit that good with me, though. Like GNX, I’m not a fan of any of the remixes/duets on the deluxe editions. I find BRAT is at its strongest when Charli is unencumbered and in complete control. The lyrics are honest and vulnerable in a way dance pop typically isn’t. In an industry where corporate popstars are churned out regularly, this album sturck a chord because an artist was speaking honestly.

Favorite song: “Sympathy is a knife” OR “Mean girls”

2. Towa Bird – American Hero

I’ll confess I was introduced to Towa Bird as “Renee Rapp’s Girlfriend,” but after playing “Drain Me,” “Boomerang” and “B.I.L.L.S.” on repeat for several weeks, she became my favorite up-and-coming artist. American Hero was the only album I pre-downloaded for Day 1 listening except the final entry on this list. The British punk guitar riffs backing up the Gen Z struggle lyrics produces the tighest front-to-back album of the year in my eyes. Towa Bird is a rising star and I’m excited to be along for the ride to the top.

Favorite song: “Boomerang” OR “Ew”

1. Green Day – Saviors

I sure am predictable! Green Day is my all-time favorite band. Depending on who you ask, their last good album came out either 33, 30, 20, or 15 years ago. But I’m here with some bombshell news: their last good album came out this year! It’s not Dookie 2 or American Idiot 2, and that’s why it works. You can’t sing about weed or teenage disillusion in your 50s, but a lot of artists try to as a desperate attempt to recapture the glory days. Saviors is instead brutally honest about growing old in a broken country. The band that once sang about how meth is (maybe?) awesome is now singing about trying to overcome alcoholism. It’s not as instantly iconic as it was in the 90s, but it’s just as real. It might be the last good album my favorite band ever releases, so I’m gonna cherish it.

Also I saw them live in August for the first time ever after being a fan for more than half my life and it was incredible. They played Dookie and American Idiot in full, so thank you to this album for allowing me to see that. Maybe it’s the best album ever for that reason.

Favorite song: “Dilemma” OR “Goodnight Adeline”