Michael's Cut

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At one point, I thought this list couldn’t get done, let alone an article about it. Though I started the re-listening period last January, I was also an undergraduate preparing for spring commencement. A dilemma approached me, one that had beaten me multiple times. I tried to balance my academics, but what about my social life, the friends I’ll never see again after this year because I absolutely hate Washington? And what about rent? Who’s gonna dress in cashmere to serve a bunch of picky 5-year olds lunch? Simply put, I had no time to finish these rankings.

Around August, I resumed the journey, and what a patient six months I indulged in. Re-listening to around 130 albums was so fun! I love when opinions about an album change; it makes me refer back to my notes and question everything I initially wrote. Feelings were hurt, all were mine and internalized. Numbers shouldn’t matter, but it didn’t stop me from making this list.

I learned how to break down each section into smaller bits. I wonder if you’ll agree with my takes, but, regardless, I hope you find a song or work you like or will check out later. Enjoy.

10. Melt My Eyez See Your Future, Denzel Curry

We’ve witnessed Denzel Curry confess personal blues on TA13OO, but he still withheld his identity under a shiesty. What would happen if he invited us deeper into his thoughts, “Melt Session #1” answers as its drips jazz-rap arrangements. On Melt My Eyes See Your Future, the conversation balances therapy, mental fatigue, faith, and resilience, among others. Blinds are drawn, and you’re brought into a dark section of the gallery. “Angelz” and “The Ills” comprise spacier, calmer beats to highlight Curry’s introspection, while “Sanjuro,” “Walkin,” and “Zatoichi” accelerate into turbulence, pacing the dead weight with excitement, unpredictability. If you haven’t found the answer, you weren’t listening close enough.

9. a.k.a. YAYA, YAYA Kim

A.K.A. YAYA yields three discs spanning over two hours, all of which present vibrancy in their genre acquisitions and knowledge. Smooth, enchanting jazz riddles in one moment (“Life is Nothing,” “Cat Skill”), and then you’re caught between dancers in ballroom tango (“Esta noche”), a testament to how the record pirouettes with ease. Maybe not that fast, as Kim spends her time indulging the smoky background like a nine-course meal. Jessica Rabbit comes to mind the further you pioneer. She’s a woman bounded by her own standards and lets them be her final judgment, the way the Korean polymath lets us perceive her over the course of this wondrous statement. 

8. Hellfire, black midi

On Hellfire, the songwriting perplexes you with just as much awe, though the Croydon musketeers yearn for the melodrama. Avant-prog reiterates into obnoxious horse-racing commentary crushing into defeat (“The Race is About to Begin”) and jazz-ridden murder tabloid articles (“Sugar/Tzu”), alongside other absurd tragedies. Every song evokes a sense of pathos as our narrator considerably questions their instability, quickly followed by rationalization. The cycle never trips up on you; despite its unsteady flow of ideas and explosions, Hellfire radiates a certain kind of artistic glow, technical combustions gleaming like northern lights aside fierce vocals turning vacant when necessary. The descent into hell’s horrible enough, how ironic would it be if we fell down with them, as “27 Questions” proposes.

7. And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, Weyes Blood

The fatal spirituality of Titanic Rising informs the tale of its successor. And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow seals tragedy with decorum, burying the defeated along the shoreline. Where Weyes Blood takes the survivors truly depends. Sea levels have risen, but so have our infection rates (“The Worst is Done”), and the city has become a hot spot for isolation (“It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”). Where do we go from here? As high tide begins, “Children of the Empire” and “Hearts Aglow” sail across searching for the next settlement. They sound so triumphant that even the depths of “God Turn Me into a Flower” can’t bring us back to our dystopian reality. Let our destination be fruitful, but let it also be a reset.

6. The Forever Story, JID

JID gives his voice prominence when no one expected him to, at least not from me. If anything, “Surround Sound” infers his high echelon in the trap scene, yet The Forever Story writes a different manuscript. Dense production choices complement JID’s confessions, his energy spilling over the oil. A rainbow forms in the warfare. Songs like “Dance Now” and “Just in Time” dissect adversaries and leaves them on a stretcher. And we learn about JID’s meaning of family through the bluesy dissertations from “Kody Blu 31” to “Sistanem.” Truly restless in its hustle from front to back. I’m so glad to be wrong.

5. Natural Brown Prom Queen, Sudan Archives

The best records leave a memorable tale, or at least can create one musically, aside from their immaculate production. Hailing from Cincinnati, Brittney Parks moves to L.A. to pursue music and dawns the name Sudan Archives for the world to respect. She appropriates years of struggle by coming into her own as a form of resilience on Natural Brown Prom Queen, where she crushes violin performances over swells of hi-hats, handclaps, and oozing keyboards. “Home Maker” fiddles with vintage dance aesthetics over breathy falsettos and crunchy bass. But then “NBPQ” sways you into antsy Punjabi folk music and hip-hop braggadocio. For as left-field as the album is, the story remains focused in its mission, bring Archives into the center frame. She’s worked for this moment her whole life. Now, it’s time to give them what she wants.

4. Baby, Petrol Girls

If you ask what change sounds like, it’s Baby. Factions have long been decided in the form of governments and capitalism. The Petrol Girls calls for the community to challenge its oppressors, whether it be advocacy for the Roe v. Wade restoration (“Baby, I Had an Abortion”) or the investigation of the police’s power imbalance (“Violent by Design”). Societal rights have been stripped enough for punk mannerisms to detonate and steamroll whatever stands in their way. I imagine Ren Alridge spitting at the Cabinet as crunchy guitar walls obstruct police forces on “Fight for Our Lives.” Noise rock blasts through the megaphones, another platform to push the uprise from England to Austria, from Asia to South America.

3. De todas las flores, Natalia Lafourcade

De Todas las flores submits to the same musical philosophies Lafourcade’s been utilizing for years, so what’s changed? No longer are we enchanted by classic Hispanic renditions or beautiful movie soundtracks (see Coco). Original arrangements were just the beginning of this masterpiece’s achievements. To unravel each detail, each brush of drums, each exhale from one note and into another, place all the album’s subtleties a cut above the rest. Jazz, singer-songwriter, and Hispanic folk music already suggest luxe, but Lafourcade crafts more delicacies. A voice unwavering, it can catch each dandelion swept from the zephyr (“Pasan los días”). On the other side of the seesaw, she conducts the band through blissful samba-jazz grooves (“Mi manera de querer”). She usually teeters on the former side, but her ability to pinpoint the beauty in music continues to take precedence like no other.

2. Blue Rev, Alvvays

Adolescent gloom has always flourished in Alvvays’ orbit, but it’s been eight years since the titular debut. It’s become apparent we can’t dismiss these feelings as solely adolescence. Start the ignition on Blue Rev, let’s see how these themes translate into adulthood. “Pharmacist” acknowledges an old flame returning to Molly Rankin’s hometown, followed by the naive tug-of-war between leaving and staying in this unrequited love on “Tom Verlaine” and “Bored in Bristol.” You’re lost in these narratives when the band unloads these tracks with fuzzy guitar flares and a dose of indifference countered by emotive diary entries. Songwriting-wise, Blue Rev contains my favorite batch of songs, fitting sepia-toned imagery with striking abstracts: “Who is she / because I know that she can’t be me?” Rankin expels in disbelief. It seems impossible, but maybe the Charlottetown outfit prove our childhood struggles are just everyday struggles gone complex, served alongside black coffee and over-easy eggs.

1. Ants From Up There, Black Country, New Road

Black Country, New Road has been hyped to the stratosphere by online figures and music publications alike. From just 2019’s “Athen’s, France” and “Sunglasses,” we’ve seen the comeuppance of a band ready to exfoliate self-aware audacities and niche insecurities. And rightfully so, Ants from Up There blends these storytelling tactics and sharp constitutions with blood-boiling passion. Grand pop and rock arrangements set up the ideals for a perfect landing, “Chaos Space Marine” with its galloping rhythmic impetus, “Haldern” with its interlocking bass with strings and simmering cymbals. Isaac Wood musters every ounce of courage to unlock his attic-filled headspace, countering denials of a troubled relationship with cantankerous rhythms forming scabs. A humanizing sight of music corresponding with the human condition, the shakiness of Wood’s cries leaves you breaking out in goosebumps (“Snow Globes”). It was a masterful decision and immaculate execution, as does all which Ants From Up There deals its audience, the feeling that your past always returns to haunt you with new feelings and emotions that are overwhelming, ugly, lethal if not treated. It’s the right step for Woods to step down away from the pressures, but the record evidences all the great things about music to come, and the unknown but exciting trajectory of Britain’s most enthralling collective right now.

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