2004 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

September 21, 2025 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

Besides being the halfway mark of the 2000s, 2004 also saw gay marriages beginning in Massachusetts, the first state to legalise them; George Bush re-elected president and iTunes sold its 200,000,000th song. But what are rateyourmusic.com’s top 5 albums from the year? Well:

#1 Madvillain - Madvillainy
#2 Kanye West - The College Dropout
#3 MF DOOM - MM FOOD
#4 Arcade Fire - Funeral
#5 Natural Snow Buildings - The Winter Ray

And here’s a nunch of intriguing albums I’m going to throw in the mix from further down the list:

#6 Shibusashirazu - Shibuboshi
#7 My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
#8 Lamp - For Lovers
#13 Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
#18 Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
#22 Brian Wilson - Smile
#31 Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

Off we go…

Lovers is a warm, nostalgic trip through 60s pop reverence, with echoes of The Beatles and The Beach Boys shimmering throughout its gentle melodies and lush harmonies. Even without understanding the lyrics, the melodic phrasing carries a clear emotional resonance — these songs feel like they’d be irresistibly catchy if you could sing along.

The production is beautifully crisp, every element placed with care. It’s an album that feels almost weightless at times, drifting along in a dreamy haze. That said, there are moments — particularly in the rhythm section — where the drums and bass lean into something a bit too squeaky-clean or kitsch, which slightly undercuts the more timeless aspects of the songwriting. Still, there’s something undeniably cosy about Lovers — it’s the kind of record that wraps itself around you like a soft, familiar blanket.

7/10

“Mm..Food is the fifth studio album by British-American rapper and producer MF Doom. The album peaked at number 17 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart. The title Mm..Food is an anagram of its performer’s name, "MF Doom".” - Wikipedia

MF DOOM’s MM..FOOD is a feast of language and rhythm, served with his trademark deadpan charm. His liquid-smooth cadence makes even the densest rhyme schemes sound effortless, flowing across beats that are as odd and colourful as the man behind the mask. The production is a patchwork of cartoon snippets, dusty soul loops, and left-field samples that somehow coalesce into something rich and nourishing. What makes the record truly remarkable is its literacy: DOOM is playful, sharp, and endlessly referential, packing each track with wordplay that rewards close listening but never loses its bounce. Even two decades on, it still feels startlingly fresh, a reminder that hip-hop can be both cerebral and fun, complex and inviting. MM..FOOD isn’t just an album — it’s a banquet of ideas, plated up with style and wit held back only by a few too many interludes and the fact that DOOM’s effortless delivery is at times so deadpan, it doesn’t hold me for the album’s duration.

8/10

10. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

My Chemical Romance

“Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (often shortened to Three Cheers or Revenge) is the second studio album by American rock band My Chemical Romance. With this album, the band produced a more polished sound than that of their 2002 debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.

The album received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success for both the band and the Reprise label. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) less than a year after its release.” - Wikipedia

Pulverising production and relentless pace make Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge perhaps the most lively record of its year. Gerard Way’s vocals are theatric and just unhinged enough to perfectly encapsulate emo’s 2004 peak, balancing angst with a flair for the dramatic. Although released before I went to university, it’s the record that most vividly takes me back there. Partly that’s the memory of countless nights at dingy alternative clubs where songs like these would tear through the smoke and sweat, but mostly it’s the way MCR managed to bottle the simultaneous excitement and anxiety of that time of life.

The album hardly ever lets up, sometimes to its detriment — it might be stronger trimmed by a couple of tracks. But even so, it’s a cacophony of memorable, powerful melodies, played and sung with such theatrical conviction that the excess feels part of its charm. Few records manage to be so melodramatic and so affecting all at once, and Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge still earns its place as one of emo’s defining statements.

8.5/10

9. From a Basement on the Hill

Elliott Smith

“From a Basement on the Hill is the sixth and final studio album by the American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Recorded from 2000 to 2003, and faced with multiple delays due to Smith's personal problems that resulted in his death, it was released posthumously.

The album was initially planned as a double album, and was incomplete at the time of Smith's death. Many of the songs Smith intended for the album remained unfinished, in some cases lacking only vocals. Smith's family hired his former producer Rob Schnapf and ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme to sort through and finish the batch of over thirty songs that were recorded for the album, although the estate retained final decision on which tracks to include.” - Wikipedia

From a Basement on the Hill is the most unguarded Elliott Smith ever sounded on record. The heavier, grungier textures push against his soft, plaintive voice, creating a tension that feels both unsettling and magnetic. Where earlier albums were polished into something delicate, here the edges are rough, jagged, and often deliberately left exposed. It gives the impression of hearing songs still alive in his head, unfinished in the best sense — buzzing with possibility rather than smoothed into certainty.

What makes it remarkable is how the storms make the quieter moments glow. The acoustic tracks don’t just offer respite, they feel warmer, more intimate, because of the chaos surrounding them.

It’s also the record that most fully embraces his contradictions — gentle and ferocious, melodic and discordant, hopeful and despairing. Listening feels like moving through someone’s inner weather system, where calm skies can break into thunder without warning. That makes it my favourite of his albums: less tamed, more vulnerable, and ultimately more human. It’s not perfect, it was never going to be with it being incomplete, but it’s beautiful.

8.5/10

I’m not sure what exactly is being celebrated by the Japanese jazz orchestra here—a new king, a child’s birth, a marriage, or maybe just another ordinary day. Whatever the occasion, Shibisashirazu are throwing one hell of a party on Shibuboshi. Every trumpet honks in delight, the drums pit, patter, and groove with easy contentment, while the bass struts with a playful spring in its step. The whole record is a joyous cacophony, stitched together from a jumble of influences yet somehow completely its own. This is jazz at its most infectious, its most energetic, its most miraculous.

9/10

“Seven Swans is the fourth studio album by Sufjan Stevens. It features songs about Christian spiritual themes, figures such as Abraham, and Christ's Transfiguration. The songs are primarily "lush acoustic compositions" with Stevens' banjo.” - Wikipedia

Religious themes run through Seven Swans, yet they’re never overbearing. Even as someone with no faith, I find its meditative, almost prayer-like atmosphere deeply moving. The stripped-back arrangements give Sufjan’s already intimate voice even more closeness, the quiet instrumentals breathing alongside him.

What makes the record resonate isn’t its theology but its artistry — graceful melodies, vulnerable performances, and songwriting that feels quietly timeless. In its best moments, it captures a sense of peace and certainty that faith can give, even to a listener who doesn’t share it. “In the Devil’s Territory” is a particular highlight, its echoed strums like bottled peace of mind, bouncing back for a hug.

9/10

Brian Wilson’s Smile is as much a resurrection as it is a release. Originally conceived in the mid-60s as the follow-up to Pet Sounds, the project collapsed under the weight of expectation, studio excess, and Wilson’s own struggles, leaving behind only fragments that became the stuff of legend among Beach Boys fans. Decades later, Wilson returned to the material, reworking it with his live band into the cohesive, finished piece we finally received in 2004.

Listening to Smile, it really does feel like the return of the Beach Boys. It’s clear much of the material was written in their orbit, even if what we hear here is re-recorded with Wilson’s solo band. The album is structured almost like a classical suite, in three distinct movements, which gives it an elegant sense of flow and artistic shape.

The melodies are, as expected from Wilson, simply gorgeous—radiant, playful, dipped in melancholy. What’s striking is how natural it all sounds: the arrangements and production place you firmly in that late-60s world, to the point where it could be mistaken for an album that followed immediately after Pet Sounds. For some listeners that might feel like nostalgia bordering on stasis, but to me it’s a triumph. The timelessness of the sound makes Smile feel like a lost classic finally unearthed.

It captures both the innocence and ambition of Wilson’s original vision while also serving as a moving reminder of what was almost lost to history. The album is impossible to listen to without—wait for it—a smile.

9/10

Every night my son picks an album from those I’ve downloaded for this challenge as the song to go to sleep to with me. Usually it’s something to do with the cover—Kid A for example, because it had “mountains.” The Milk-Eyed Mender has become bedtime listening every night since he spotted the aeroplanes on the cover. The boy loves aeroplanes. I now think this album will forever remind me of this precious time, lying beside him as he talked about his day and drifted off in my arms (or armpit as the case often is…). Somehow Joanna Newsom has been a perfect accompaniment to that.

On The Milk-Eyed Mender, Newsom announces herself with a debut that feels utterly singular. Her voice is often called divisive, but it’s precisely its sharp, quivering presence that makes these songs impossible to ignore. There’s a command here—of language, melody, and mood—that recalls Dylan’s Freewheelin’, though her lyrical world is far stranger and more enchanted. Verses land with the memorability of choruses, packed with vivid and sometimes abstract imagery that lingers like half-remembered dreams.

The sparse, homespun production deepens the intimacy, allowing her harp and piano to frame words that flicker like fire—fragile one moment, incandescent the next. The result is a record that feels both rooted in folk tradition and yet untethered from any particular time. It’s timeless, idiosyncratic, and for those willing to embrace its eccentricities, a revelation.

It’s odd what can lead to albums defining times of our lives. Sometimes it’s as predictable as a release date lining up with a life event. Sometimes, as I’ve found, it’s as unpredictable as a couple of aeroplanes hidden on a cover.

9/10

I’m not going to go into Kanye West’s more recent years and the controversies that have followed him—it’s enough to say that I don’t align with his current outlook. What I’m interested in here is the art itself, and The College Dropout deserves to be judged on its own terms. This record, arriving in 2004, feels like a breath of fresh air in the hip-hop landscape of its time. Where much of mainstream rap leaned heavily into bravado, hyper-masculinity, and hardened seriousness, Kanye carved out something different: an album that was soulful, playful, and surprisingly vulnerable.

Listening to The College Dropout is like being handed an ice cream cone on a hot day—sweet, refreshing, and delightfully indulgent. The production is bursting with colour, packed with warm, gospel-infused samples and beats that bounce around like a pile of multi-coloured bouncy balls spilling across the floor. It has an energy that never quite sits still, yet always feels meticulously crafted. And over it, Kanye raps with a delivery that’s equal parts smooth and slightly nerdy, brimming with confidence but also carrying a sense of self-awareness and charm.

The features only add to the richness of the album—guests like Jay-Z, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli broaden the palette without overshadowing the core vision. From the playful skits to the personal reflections on family, education, and ambition, there’s a real sense of humanity that anchors the record. Kanye manages to balance sincerity and wit in a way that makes the album endlessly replayable: one moment sharp social commentary, the next a grin-inducing hook or joke.

What’s most impressive is how The College Dropout still feels fresh today. Every listen reveals something new—whether it’s a hidden detail in the production, a clever turn of phrase, or simply a shift in mood that resonates differently with where you are in life. It’s infectious from start to finish, and no matter how many times I return to it, the album puts me in a good mood. More than just a debut, it’s the arrival of an artist who redefined what hip-hop could sound like, and it remains, for me, a genuine masterpiece.

9.5/10

“Madvillainy is the only studio album by American hip-hop duo Madvillain, consisting of British-American rapper MF Doom and American record producer Madlib.

Madlib created most of the instrumentals during a trip to Brazil in his hotel room using minimal amounts of equipment: a Boss SP-303 sampler, a turntable, and a tape deck. Fourteen months before the album was released, an unfinished demo version was stolen and leaked onto the internet. Frustrated, the duo stopped working on the album and returned to it only after they had released other solo projects.

Madvillainy received widespread critical acclaim for Madlib's production and MF Doom's lyricism, and is regarded as Doom's magnum opus. It has since been widely regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time in general, being ranked in various publications' lists of all-time greatest albums.” - Wikipedia

Madvillainy isn’t an album so much as a labyrinth. MF Doom and Madlib never seem interested in delivering songs in the traditional sense; instead, they build a shifting collage where beats slide in and out, verses cut off mid-thought, and samples appear like apparitions. It feels like flipping through a secret notebook, fragments of brilliance tumbling onto the page.

The production is dusty, fire-lit, and playful, with Madlib pulling loops and textures from every corner of the record bin. Doom, with his liquid cadence and dense, literate wordplay, glides over it like he’s annotating the beat in real time. It’s often funny, often surreal, and always hypnotic.

What’s striking is how the record thrives on incompleteness. Many tracks clock in under two minutes, sketches rather than full statements, but together they form a masterful tapestry, glowing brighter than an industrial strength bulb at the bottom of a well.

And through all its fragmented genius, Madvillainy never stops moving. Even when it dissolves into strange corners, I’m always bopping, always caught in its gravitational pull. It’s a hip-hop landmark, not because it’s polished, but because it dares to be unfinished and still feels complete.

9.5/10

“Funeral is the debut studio album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire. Its lyrics draw upon themes of death, change, and the loss of childhood innocence. It received widespread critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists, now often considered one of the greatest albums of all time.” - Wikipedia

Of all the albums from this year, Funeral is the one most deeply etched into memory. Its relentless bass-drum marches, soaring dramatic melodies, and sudden shifts in power make it feel less like a collection of songs and more like a single, urgent statement. Born out of grief—several band members lost family during its creation—it resonates as a communal shout into the void, a work steeped in both mourning and catharsis.

What makes it remarkable is how it transforms sorrow into something both fragile and defiant. There’s a melancholy acceptance in its quieter moments, yet always the sense of life pushing back against the darkness. The choruses bloom with a sense of shared survival, as if everyone is holding one another up. It feels at once raw and meticulously crafted, intensely personal yet universal.

Even now, it’s hard to find fault in it. Funeral captures the paradox of grief: the ache of loss and the strange, almost life-affirming energy that comes from knowing your time will come too, and you’d better live while you can.

10/10

Natural Snow Buildings are one of those cult projects that feel like they’ve been quietly working in a parallel dimension to the rest of music. The French duo—Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte—have been releasing sprawling, often homemade records since the late ’90s, mixing elements of drone, folk, ambient, and noise into something that feels both personal and cosmically scaled. They’ve always thrived on excess, whether in length, in texture, or in atmosphere, and The Winter Ray might be their most audacious statement: a two-and-a-half-hour epic that stretches the boundaries of what an album can be.

At its core, The Winter Ray is less about songs in the traditional sense and more about landscapes. Across its length, the duo conjure images of collapsing governments, wars, and societal decay—not in any direct or literal way (other than the odd barely audible voiceover), but through sound alone. You get twinkling piano lines that could just as easily belong in a children’s lullaby, gently plucked guitar motifs that shimmer like fragile light, and endless, patient drones that feel like the earth itself humming under the weight of history. The pacing is deliberate: movements build with near-imperceptible slowness until they crest into tidal crescendos, only to ebb away into silences so delicate you almost hold your breath.

What makes The Winter Ray remarkable is that, on one hand, it’s perfectly possible to let it wash over you as background ambience—it has the patient, enveloping quality of music designed to blur into your environment. But give it your full attention, and it becomes a different beast altogether. Suddenly every shift in tone feels monumental; every drone note carries unbearable weight; every quiet passage feels loaded with tension. In that way, it functions almost like a mirror to the world outside: a reminder that chaos and beauty are often entwined, and that history unfolds not just in headlines but in long, quiet stretches of waiting.

Listening through all 180 minutes is less like playing an album and more like entering a space, one you can’t quite leave until the music releases you. And when it does—when the final notes fade and you remove your headphones—there’s a subtle disorientation, as though the everyday world has been tinted differently, as though you’ve been carrying the weight of centuries in sound.

The Winter Ray is not easy, nor is it meant to be. It demands patience, stillness, and trust. But if you’re willing to surrender to it, it’s an extraordinary journey—an unspoken history lesson, a meditation on society’s fragility, and a powerful testament to Natural Snow Buildings’ ability to create an entire universe out of drones, whispers, and silence.

10/10

2024 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

February 13, 2025 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

So, as I try to keep up with the present while writing about my favourite albums of every year from 1960, here’s my list of a whole bunch of albums from 2024. Over the past few months I’ve listened to all of Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’, the top 10-15 or so at rateyourmusic.com, Anthony Fantano’s top 10, and some other stuff, hence why this list is rather long. I also moved house, and welcomed my second son over the same period, so time has been very limited! On that note, there are no song picks for some of these albums, this is generally nothing to do with the albums, and everything to do with a lack of time while I was writing that particular review.

To save all your data plans and scrolling thumbs, I’ll only give the top 20 the honour of having their album art posted here. But anyway, let’s get going:

The ‘didn’t do it for me’ list
Before we get into the list, here’s a few that didn’t massively do it for me, and so despite their reception elsewhere haven’t made my list:

Empress Of : For Your Consideration - ‘One night stand - the album.’ And not a particularly memorable one.
Kali Malone: All life Alone - Creepy, a bit too churchy, dunno.
Still House Plants: If I Don't Make it I Love U: Very inventive, but sounds kind of like the vocals and instrumentation for two separate songs plonked together in a way that doesn't match up. It's deliberate, and no doubt difficult, but I just didn't enjoy it that much.
Vampire Weekend - God Was Above Us - I must have undergone some traumatic event while listening to the band’s vocals at some point, as somehow they just make me feel unpleasant. Unfair, but I couldn’t get into this.
Chief Keef - Almighty So 2 - Was all a bit much, probably my mood at the time...

And now, finally, onto the actual list. There’s 50 albums on it, so let’s get cracking.

50. JUS - 3rd Shift

Love the production and beats, but the lyrics are doing very little for me.

6/10

49. DORIS - Ultimate Love Songs

One of those 'song snippets' albums with songs never over a minute long. I like what it's doing and it's a fun listen, I'm just a little over the auto-tuned spoken style which seems very popular this year.

6/10

48. Yaya Bey - Ten Fold

Like a silky smooth luxury hot chocolate in the dim light of the small lamp in the corner. But, much like that comfortable blanket, it doesn’t leave much of a mark.

Song Picks: crying through my teeth

6.5/10

47. Starchris - Body Meat

I feel like it does some really interesting stuff as it approaches its end, but begins by just sounding like decent but unremarkable auto-tune-math pop.

Song Picks: Obu No Seirei

6.5/10

46. Schoolboy Q - Blue Lips

Schoolboy Q’s sixth album was one for the ‘very enjoyable’ pile. Just a solid rap album, with some filthy grinding bass.

6.5/10

45. Bladee - Cold Visions

Swedish rapper Bladee’s seventh album is essentially an album of those 16th note, half-time songs that usually make up a couple of tracks on your average rap album. In going in so hard on a very specific style you focus more on the intricacies: Bladee’s sad auto-tuned melodies, the atmosphere, the words. None of those quite do enough, and it’s a little too bloated for me to rate it more highly, but there’s some real gold in there.

Song Picks: FLATLINE, Terrible Excellence

6.5/10

44. Sumac - The Healer

Atmospheric, sparse, epic, downright filthy, but a bit roary for my tastes, if roaring metal music is your bag, I’d highly recommend.

Song Picks: World of Light

7/10

43. Jeff Barker & ETA IVtet - The Way Out of Easy

I have to say the repetitive, aggressive bass-line of the opening track got to me after a while, but other than that I really loved this hypnotic jazz album. It has a nice raw, band feel, and some great expressive playing.

7/10

42. The Smile - Wall of Eyes

It sounds luxurious, with innovative and compelling production, but it doesn’t massively go anywhere until the explosive Bending Hectic. It meanders beautifully, but - probably due to the amount of music I’m getting through for 2024 - I’m feeling the need for more focus.

Song Picks: Bending Hectic

7/10

41. Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God

ROOAARR. A thoroughly rollocking listen.

7/10

40. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

Jazzy, pleasant, futuristic but with an eye to the past, much like her debut, but somehow less captivating.

7/10

39. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

A slow, dramatic descent into apathy. A good comeback.

Song Picks: Alone, Endsong, And Nothing is Forever

7/10

38. Johnny Blue Skies - Passage du Desir

Just bloody good country folk. Nothing groundbreaking, but it does feature plenty of lead guitar noodling, which has gone somewhat out of fashion, but I very much welcomed.

7.5/10

37. Kim Gordon - The Collective

Kim Gordon’s second solo album is a distorted, industrial, shouted list of modern life where the bass is so high it’s shattering against the noise ceiling and fuzzing out across it. The Collective is that feeling of picking up a phone and being pissed off that you just spent 20 minutes taking in inane shite. It’s the realisation that tech is working against you, and it’ll exploit your psychology for ‘engagement’ - for your time is another man’s money. “Fuck you” you scream, in a manner reminiscent of the angrier passages on the album - but it’s a battle you’re doomed to loose.

Song Picks: BYE BYE, The Candy House, Psychadelic Orgasm

7.5/10

36. Kali Uchis - Orquideas

Uchis’ fourth album is an enjoyable, exciting and sumptuous sounding blend of Spanish and English, both in linguistic and musical terms. A refreshing stylistically free pop release that features a bunch of addictive hooks, but also keeps things interesting and colourful on the production front.

Song Picks: Me Pongo Loca, Heladito,

7.5/10

35. MJ Lendermann - Manning Fireworks

Great, catchy alt-country reminiscent of Spider Bags.

7.5/10

34. Los Campesinos - All Hell

It feels at times like they're trying a little too hard to be 'that band that uses football references in their songs', but it's another collection of addictive, catchy indie-rock tracks, with generally engaging lyrics more intelligent than most of their indie brethren.

7.5/10

33. Nilufer Yanya - My Method Actor

I loved her previous release, and I like the fuzzier, heavier development in her sound here (on the excellent Like I Say for example), which plays well with her more poppy vocals and production. One of the things I loved about her debut was the driving drum loops, and the latter half of this sophomore effort is a little lacking in that regard, which makes it lose some momentum. Still great, but not quite as impactful as her debut for me.

Sing Picks: Like I Say (I runaway), Method Actor, Binding

7.5/10

32. Being Dead - EELS

My favourite indie-pop record of the year. It just has a lovely vibe you know. Colourful instrumentation, nice melodies, and it doesn't get old on repeat listens.

Song Picks: Godzilla Rises,

8/10

31. Mount Eerie - Night Palace

I think you have to be in the mood to absorb an Everlum album, and I’ve not quite been in the headspace to properly absorb its bleak melancholy, but I have thoroughly appreciated the way he mixes more acoustic, quiet elements with heavier, more explosive ones. It sounds like a man honestly conveying a mental struggle both musically and lyrically, and I think that was the goal. One I’ll return to in future years and will no doubt love when it hits me at the right time.

8/10

30. Nicolas Jaar - Piedras 1 & 2

I don’t have time to translate the Spanish lyrics, which by all accounts make this a strong political statement. Read the excellent Pitchfork review for info on those. Musically it’s classic Jaar - we’ve got a mix of music and sound effects, combining to create soundscapes that are uniquely his. Piedras 1 has more of the catchy stuff on it, but the catchiness is deliberately obscured by haunting timbres, industrial drones and more. It’s like the melody is the heart and soul of Latin America, trying to shout through the endless drone of oppression from within and without. Or something like that.

8/10

29. Helado Negro - Phasor

Helado Negro’s 8th album is a beauty. Though not quite as memorable as 2019’s This is How You Smile, it provides a different flavour of the black ice cream that Roberto Carlos Lange has named his project after. A soothing, abstract album of soundscapes and flowery melodies sung in a gorgeous hush. It’s not necessarily one that will stick in the brain, but it is one that soothes the soul, and does so in a way that is consistently engaging and magical.

Song Picks: LFO, Colores del Mar, Flores, Wish You Could Be here

8/10

28. Charli XCX - Brat

I can’t say I’m much of a fan of Club Classics, but other than that this thing is just packed full of bangers, and at 42 minutes it feels the perfect length. Charli XCX’s hyper-pop is for the attention deficient and yet discerning - it’s immediate - but it’s also lasting thanks to it’s buried complexity. No mean feat - one of the year’s strongest pop releases.

Song Picks: 365, Sympathy is a knife, So I,

8/10

27. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

I'm always slightly wary before putting on a death metal release. 'Is this going to be another one I cast aside and feel like I can say very little about beyond the music being technically brilliant and intricate but there being too much roaring'.

Absolute Elsewhere is full of technical brilliance, and has a fair bit of roaring, but you know what? I do not feel like casting it aside. It blends the epicness of prog-rock and the strangely calm repetitiveness of krautrock, with the pulverising riffs and roaring of death metal - and it bloody works. Lyrically I can take it or leave it, although it's nice to have something a bit more futuristic sci-fi than about the orcs and monsters and blood and the devil that is common in the genre. From an instrumental enjoyment perspective, it's one of the best band albums of the year, no doubt, and many of the sections are simply sublime. It creates a hellish atmosphere, but it's a hell that I keep wanting to return to.

Song Picks: The Stargate - [Tablet 1] and [Tablet III]

8/10

26. 1010benja - Ten Total

Ten Total is just what you want from a debut, An unfiltered, expressive and somewhat raw collection of songs that displays 1010benja’s obvious talents. He flits around, but always sounds at home, and the album has some of the year’s best hooks on for sure. I’ve had Waterworks going round my head all day as a case in point, and I Can is one of those simple songs that goes straight for the feelies.

Song Picks: Waterworks, H2HAVEYOU, Mire, I Can

8/10

25. Mabe Fratti - Sentir Que No Sabes

The avant-garde cellist’s fourth album is a journey reminiscent of all those female musical pioneers such as Bjork, Laurie Anderson, PJ Harvey - that is to say it kicks ass. Sentir Que No Sabes sucks you in with its weird textures and mysterious vocals again and again. I feel like I’m walking in a new world, with someone whispering poetics to me from the old one.

Song Picks: Kravitz, Enfrente, Elastica II

8/10

24. Jack White - No Name

Bouncy guitar riffs, plenty of energy, and production that strikes the perfect balance between raw and polished for this 70s inspired sound.

Song Picks: Old Scratch Blues, Tonight (Was a Long Time Ago), Underground

8/10

23. Hovvdy - Hovvdy

Hovvdy’s self-titled sixth album is a treat. It reminds me of the John Mayer, Joshua Radin type stuff that was coming out in my teens, but it’s way less cookie-cutter. Full of catchy melodies and charm. Probably the album of the year that I’d recommend to more or less anyone.

Song Picks: Jean, Meant, Every Exchange

8/10

22. xaviersobased - Keep It Goin Xav

“What on earth is this? It sounds like 300 T-Pains competing with each other. Is this what the kids are making nowadays?”

“You know, there’s some interesting layering work going on here”

“Damn, I’m lost in an auto-tuned haze of smoke”

“Damn”

“Fresh”

8/10

21. Verraco - Breathe.... Godspeed EP

Relentlessly innovative. A splash of cold water to the face.

Song Picks Godspeed

8/10

20. You Won’t Go before You’re Supposed To

Knocked Loose

My favourite death metal album of the year. Is that because it’s the shortest, or because it features only a sprinkling of roaring? Probably a bit of both; 28 mins is the perfect length for me to listen to something as intense and frenetic as this. Angry, intricate, constantly winding, YWGBYST is a thrill ride you won’t want get off.

8.5/10

Pulverising riffs and a vocal anger that hits like a truck, but with an ability to play with dynamics beyond many of their peers. It’s a rollercoaster of mumbled, quiet to loud and crushing; something Loud Bark encapsulates particularly well - a transition which is done many times, but never gets old.

Song Picks: I Got Heaven, Loud Bark, Aching

8.5/10

A lovely, simple and pure expression of the joy of motherhood. I’m rather jealous that her child gets to listen to lullabies from those warm, comforting vocal chords.

Song Picks: Caroline

8.5/10

JPEG is back with another hyperactive, intense mix of energetic rap and the cut up riffs of some slightly disturbed AI Tom Morello. It doesn’t massively stick out from his previous albums, but it does feel like a slightly more mature, compact and consistent package. Definitely one of the albums I’ve flat-out enjoyed the most this year.

8.5/10

A pretty darn perfect pop record. Lovely melodies, constantly engaging production choices, and a kind of mystical vibe that makes sure it never gets old. Ram that disk right into my forehead.

8.5/10

15. Keeper of the Shepherd

Hannah Frances

Hannah Frances - Keeper of the Shepherd

I’m not sure if prog-folk is a genre, but if it is then this is it, surely. While we have none of the guitar solos or riffs of a King Crimson, we do have musical passages that change time signature - and instrumentation - on a dime. It never feels ostentatious though, just a natural turn of the river, or crack of a twig underfoot changing the road of one’s thoughts. Undoubtedly the star of the show are Hannah Frances’ vocals, which are sublime, giving everything she sings a level of weight akin to that of a cathedral. Whatever note she sings, it soars above the mix with a deserved confidence. In its 37 minutes, Keeper of the Shepherd transports you to somewhere wonderful, mysterious, and somehow familiar.

Song Picks: Bronwyn, Husk

8.5/10

The Youtube rapper’s album of leftover stuff that didn’t fit on previous albums and won’t fit on new ones is a surprisingly cohesive collection of shoegazey, distorted, blurry and grainy tracks that are both emotionally impactful and smart. One of my favourite albums to get lost in in 2024.

Song Picks: Guide Dog, Pretty Privilege, Dusctutter

8.5/10

I don’t think there’s any doubt left that Kathryn Crutchfield is one of the best songwriters living today, and Tiger’s Blood yet again proves that. Every song draws you in with how well it’s performed and paced, and Crutchfield’s melodies soar. Apparently there’s more storytelling on this album, in that some of these aren’t from her perspective as such. But you’d never know - she builds a feeling that feels completely genuine every time.

And if this isn’t one of the best lines of the year my name is Persephone: ‘You play the villain like the violin’.

Song picks: 3 Sisters, Right Back to It, Burns Out at Midnight, Crimes of the Heart

8.5/10

I’ve not followed the whole rap-beef with Drake so some of this is probably going over my head, but lyrically this is definitely less up my street than Kendrick’s earlier, more ambitious albums. That aside though, this is still one of the, if not the, most enjoyable hip-hop album I’ve heard this year. Kendrick’s flow, cadence, and lyricism is still in a class of its own, and when coupled with some impactful, accessible and yet interesting production - as well as lovely appearances from SZA - it makes for an album that is just a straight up cathartic and fun ride.

Song Picks: wacced out murals, reincarnated, luther

8.5/10

Arooj Aftab’s fourth album is dubbed as a combination of Pakistani folk music and be-bop jazz - and it’s stunning. Gentle rumbling basslines, twinkled jazz notes, vocals that sound like they’re coming from the gods, and so much atmosphere it’s almost impossible not to get completely sucked in. Night Reign sticks out as sounding refreshingly unique, while still being comfortable.

Song Picks: Aey Nehin, Last Night Reprise

8.5/10

10. The Past is Still Alive

Hurray for the Riff Raff

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s eighth album is just a fabulous testament to great songwriting. It strips things back to uncomplicated, country productions, with evocative, hummable melodies, and yet it does so in a way that is constantly immersive and entertaining, working just as well as an active listen as it does in the background. This is helped no end by Alynda Segarra’s gorgeous delivery, and colourful vocals. Full of great lines that stick with you (“Here's a silver spoon, so you can gouge out both your eyes”), The Past is Still Alive feels authentic; it’s not trying to appeal to everyone, but in not trying it somehow does.

Song Picks: Alibi, Buffalo,

8.5/10

I’ve never got into FJM before, but this one has me sold. The production is pretty bombastic, and there are some particularly great crescendos during the title track and the superb Screamland. Misty’s lyrics are some of the year’s best, and there’s a Dylan-esque feel to the way his vocals mix with the busy arrangements, particularly on the more driving tracks like She Cleans Up. I’d say it’s varied rather than particularly cohesive, but Misty’s wry lyrical style and his engaging and yet quite monotone delivery tie the whole thing together like one piece of wrapping paper holding together a few too many presents.

Song Picks: Mahashmashana, Screamland, She Cleans Up

8.5/10

**8. “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD”**

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Post-rock can be a bit of a one-trick pony at times, with emotional twinkling leading to humongous crescendos of fuzz and reverb all with a melancholy and yet hopeful drive. NO TITLE is different. It has those crescendos, but they’re achieved in a myriad of ways, and the mix of emotions evoked feels more complex. Despite its bleak inspiration, there’s that characteristic post-rock hope there, but it all feels a bit grittier, down to earth, and well, real. The hope feels earned, with a refreshing grime.

8.5/10

‘Hendrix of the desert’ Mdou Moctar is back in a glorious sandstorm of jagged riffs. His 2021 album Afrique Victime was one of my favourites that year and - would you believe it? - this is one of my favourites in 2024. There’s an energy and free-ness to his guitar playing that makes him one of the most interesting players I’ve come across in decades, and - even though I don’t understand the lyrics of course - the tracks have an optimistic power to them that transcends language. I think some of the slower songs show great melodic skill too, such as closer Modern Slaves.

SP: Sousoume Tamacheq, Funeral for Justice, Modern Slaves

9/10

A quite outrageous debut from the ex Black-Midi frontman. The 30 odd session musicians on this thing are absolute gold, playing as tight as a guitar string on even the most complex of arrangements. Influences from across the board, it’s a complex style of jazz-rock with more than a hint of Brazilian influence (no surprise that some of it was recorded in Sao Paolo). Greep’s vocals are dramatic, at times comedic and unhinged, and always engaging (while remaining just the right side of irritating). The vocals are those of a horny madman, and as Anthony Fantano notes; the rambunctious instrumentation makes it all feel a lot lighter than some of the slightly disturbing lyrics would otherwise.

Overall, this thing is just super engaging from start to finish, and completely unafraid to cross new boundaries. It’s nice to have something so instrumentally superb in an age where I think instrumental prowess has become somewhat out of vogue. Here it’s front and centre, and it’s glorious.

9/10

Cowboy Carter is absolutely glorious. Quite probably the year’s strongest vocal performance on a record, and songs rooted in what we know (country, pop, folk) while pumping those genres with new, tasteful ideas. Cowboy Carter sounds massive, and the covers (Blackbird, Jolene) caught me off guard initially - but the more you listen, the more they blend into this album’s classic but oh-so-modern tapestry. Beyonce is Queen - and can we please make sure all her albums have her riding a horse on the cover? I like this trend.

Song Picks: Texas Hold ‘Em, 16 Carriages, II Most Wanted

9/10

Brittany Howard’s second solo album What Now sounds like the entirety of the musical past has been thrown into a blender and then tastefully spread into our ears. Howard's vocals cut through the densest mixes, and keep an R&B influence threaded through everything. But around her things are constantly changing, with influences as far and wide as The Strokes and Curtis Mayfield. If an alien came to Earth and said, “what’s this music thing all about?” I’d give them this and that would pretty much sum it up. A cosmic, mountainous, varied record - all in a tight 38 minute run time.

9/10

UK producer and DJ Djrum’s Meaning’s Edge features quite probably the most interesting and immersive use of the stereo field I've ever heard, and as such I would highly recommend listening on headphones. Sounds are often accented not by volume or timbre, but by their place in the stereo space, something that is particularly evident on the opening track Codex, which is among my favourite tracks of 2024. The percussion, both melodic and rhythmic, flits around you like a musical, flutey version of the innards of a microchip. It’s an anxious fidgeter like me’s dream, every tic, bam, and bop satisfying another over-energetic synapse.

Meaning’s Edge sounds so confident and futuristic, it’s impossible to feel like we’re headed anywhere but a utopia listening to it. And that, in 2024, is quite something.

Song Picks: Codex, Frekm Pt. 2

9/10

Lenker’s sixth album is yet another masterstroke. Gorgeous, varied production that blends the rough with the smooth with aplomb. Lovely, evocative instrumental sections - such as the piano twinkling as the violin gives out a triumphant solo on Sadness is a Gift - melt like butter into Lenker’s warm melodies and personable vocals. Bright Future is a candle in a dark room, it’s cosy, it’s sad, and it slowly burns up any loneliness as fuel.

On a personal note, Anti-depressants are great, but sometimes they make it hard to cry when you need to, you know? Bright Future opened things up - a loving hand through the fog.

Song Picks: Sadness as a Gift, Free Treasure, Vampire Empire, Evol, Candleflame, Ruined

9.5/10

I don’t really like baths, but this albums makes me feel like what I imagine most people feel like during/after a bath. Pratt’s vocals are effortless, delicate, and perfect in such an understated way they’re a whole new level of soothing. Her melodies don’t demand attention - and she’s not one to insist on a standard verse-chorus structure. The songs here aren’t building to anything as such, but they don’t need to as every damn moment is so delicately beautiful that I can’t stop listening. Her nylon string strums are added to with some atmospheric production choices, but it still feels like she’s playing a very intimate gig in your head - every aspect of the songs massaging your brain in a way very little else does. It really is rather special. At less than half an hour, I kind of wish it was a little longer, but it’s brevity means what’s there feels even more precious.

Song Picks: Life Is, Better Hate, World on a String - ‘yeah, I’m just going through all the songs on the album aren’t I?’

9.5/10

1982 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

December 09, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

It’s time to musically tackle 1982, the year the space shuttle Columbia made its first mission, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and the Commodore 64 was released, the Falklands War happened, and Ingrid Bergman died.

We’re here for the music though right? Well, here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as their top 5 albums of 1982:

#1 The Cure - Pornography
#2 Kate Bush - The Dreaming
#3 Michael Jackson - Thriller
#4 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
#5 Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

I’m also grabbing this lot from further down the list:

#6 Glenn Gould - The Goldberg Variations
#9 Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
#13 The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour
#18 Hiroshi Yoshimura - Wave Notation 1: Music for Nine Post Cards

And we’ve also got an extra album from NPR’s best albums by female artists list (Kate Bush’s Dreaming is also on that list, but we already have it above):

Laurie Anderson - Big Science (#80 in NPR’s 150 Best Albums Made by Women)

10 albums, let’s go.

10. The Number of the Beast

Iron Maiden

The English heavy metal outfit’s third album was their last with drummer Clive Burr and first with vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

At this point it’s all a bit of a blur, but I assume I’ve talked about how I’m not a massive fan of the kind of howly, heavy rock that Iron Maiden are famous for, and I’m definitely not a fan of their cover art, this one being partricularly bad. That said, I’ve enjoyed my listens of The Number of the Beast with tracks like Children of the Damned being thoroughly daft and enjoyable. There’s no doubt that Dave Murray knows how to write powerful guitar riffs and ripping solos (see The Prisoner) and that Dickinson’s howled vocals add the required drama to proceedings, it just hasn’t got me past my prejudice towards the genre - something others have managed more effectively.

Song Picks: Children of the Damned

6/10

9. Plastic Surgery Disasters

Dead Kennedys

The Dead Kennedy's second album is lead singer Jello Biafra's favourite and sees them expand further into the high speed hardcore chaos that made Holiday in Cambodia such a great track.

East Bay Ray's guitar riffs are so frantic one imagines his left hand must be a blur while he's playing them, while Biafra’s vocals give off the vibe of someone imminently about to fall off a cliff frantically blurting out as much as they can before they do. Lyrically it’s a mix of political and social commentary, with Biafra’s battling against social norms being as present as ever.

You could certainly critiscise Plastic Surgery Disasters for being samey, and the songs do seem to blend into one a bit, but if you’re after fast songs ranting about a whole range of topics in a relentlessly energetic manner, look no further.

Song Pick: Government Flu

7/10

Kate Bush’s fourth album is often considered her most experimental, and it’s easy to see why. The poppy melodies of her other releases haven’t disappeared entirely, but they are much less frequent and replaced with a playful creativity.

The Dreaming’s tracks feature Kate Bush duetting with herself regularly, in fact - as on the superb Suspended in Gaffa - she’s often singing in four or more distinct styles. Combined with the rhythmic and often staccato instrumentation this creates a really unique sound, and one that I’d struggle to find anything comparable to even today. Bush has herself called the album ‘mad’, and indeed it is. There’s a feeling of freedom to the way the compositions skitter from melody to melody, instrument to instrument and section to section, in a way that is largely unpredictable and unvonventional.

I’m in no doubt that many will find this album a bit too challenging, it’s not as immediately gripping as 1978’s The Kick Inside for example, and there’s not all that much to latch onto or even remember particularly, but to those who give it time this is a really rewarding album that you’re unlikely ever to get bored of.

The Dreaming cements Kate Bush as not only someone who can write great songs - we already knew that from previous entries to these lists - but someone who is completely unafraid to be herself. Bush was already pretty singular before The Dreaming, with its release she became one of the most remarkable artists to grace our airwaves.

Song Picks: Suspended in Gaffa, Sat in Your Lap

8.5/10

The Fall’s fourth album is described by the lead singer, Mark E. Smith, as a satirical stand against "bland bastards like Elvis Costello and Spandau Ballet ... [and] all that shit", and features his standard abrasive vocal style and lyrics rooted in ‘kitchen sink realism’, a movement from the 50s and 60s in the arts that saw protagonists disollusioned with life and living in cramped working-class conditions, portraying a harsh and more realistic style than the art that had come before it. The album was mainly recorded in a disused cinema in Hertfordshire.

The album starts with the fantastically brash The Classical, which unfortunately drops the ‘N’ word within the first few lines, something that was not uncommon at the time. Mark E. Smith has claimed he’s singing as if it’s not him saying it - believable considering his lyrics are often built up of random outbursts coming from seemingly different people - but it’s still problematic as is explored in much more depth than I have room to here. That aside though, the song demonstrates the band’s ability to create an infectiously ramshackle sound - with the melody often coming from the guitars rather than Smith’s vocals, which snarl and grate in a way that’s so brash you can’t help but love them.

Jawbone and the Air-Rifle is another superb track with a guitar riff that you can imagine people bouncing around to aggressively in 80s clubs, Smith’s vocals carry more of a melody this time, something he’s more than capable of doing, while still never loosing that razor sharp edge he has. The track feels entirely unconventional, while also remaining very accessible. It sounds like a band playing in a room far too small for them, so the drums pound over everything else, while the guitars bounce off the grime on the walls and Smith has to thin his voice to make himself heard. It’s a rough, perfectly British mess that’s punker than punk itself. Hex Induction Hour’s remaining tracks are probably less memorable, and certainly less dance-able and infectious, but they’re still the musical equivalent of showing your teeth to the system.

Song Picks: The Classical, Jawbone and the Air-Rifle

8.5/10

The English band’s fourth album wasn’t well received critically, though it was their most succesfull up to that point commercially. It has since garnered plenty of critical acclaim, and is seen as an important album in the development of gothic rock. It was their final album with Simon Gallup, whose departure meant that all of the band’s following albums had a poppier, and lighter feel. This one is very dark though, and was written and recorded during what songwriter and vocalist Rober Smith called “an extremely stressful and self-destructive period”.

The Cure have always been the masters of atmosphere and it doesn’t take long to realise this album is no different, with the opening One Hundred Years’ guitar part sounding positively massive, with so much reverb put on it that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve fallen into a cave, “One and one we die one after the other” Smith sings as the guitar echoes this with suitably doomed notes. The Hanging Garden is a great example of the uptempo but downbeat thing that The Cure do so well, as the song chugs along at a fair clip while Smith sings lines like “Fall, fall, fall, fall out of the sky / Cover my face as the animals die” in a manner that suggests he’s had enough. But it’s not all doom and gloom… no, actually it is, every minute of Pornography is unapologetically devoid of hope. It’s a dip into the mind of someone at their lowest point, and yet in all the gloom and sadness, Smith’s melodies still fly. On the title track which closes the album, Smith is practically screaming as the drums march ominously on one side and a doom synth plays like a church organ signifying the end of time in the other, then it all cuts to black. Smith has cited this as the album that turned things around for him personally, and I see that cut at the end as the moment he’s got so low, that the only way is up, a flicker of hope that ignites a fire.

Song Picks: The Hanging Garden, One Hundred Years, Siamese Twins

9/10

Laurie Anderson’s debut is comprised of a selection of highlights from her eight-hour production United States Live - a performance piece in which music was only one element.

Big Science is avant-garde and hard to define. It’s electronic, but more concerned with soundscapes to back Anderson’s spoken word vocals than songs in the traditional sense. Having said that there are still melodies and hooks in there, often provided by other vocalists, as on the eerie title track, which brilliantly conveys the expansion of humankind in the following verse. Here Anderson cleverly turns direction giving on its head, referencing buildings that will be built rather than ones that are/were there:

Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall
Go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway
Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center
And keep going until you hit the place where
They're thinking of building that drive-in bank

O Superman, which became a surprise hit in the UK after John Peel championed it, is the album’s centrepiece and - in my opinion - masterpiece. Repeated ‘Ha’s’ in two different notes create the song’s spartan musical backdrop as Anderson talks enigmatically, and breaks into eerie melodies as she sings ‘here come the planes’. Originally inspired by the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 - the one depicted in the hit film Argo - it resonates far beyond that calmly presenting the fall of the world into some Orwellian nightmare:

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.

Anderson begins to sing more after this song, and the album’s second half shines because of it. There’s a sense that Anderson has freed herself of self-consciousness as she bursts into a gentle, melodic flame.

Big Science is a bit like a 50 minute meditation session, but where instead of ‘scanning’ your body and feeling present, you follow Anderson’s soothing voice into an infinitely interesting and timeless void. It’s a kind of less on the nose, more beautiful 1984 in musical form. One of the most creative albums of the decade.

Song Picks: O Superman, Example #22, Let X=X

9/10

Springsteen’s sixth studio album is made up of songs that were initially intended to be demos that the E-Street band would flesh out, but he decided to release them as they were. It was recorded using just two SM57s and a 4-track recorder, as many a nerdy, wannabe sound engineer forum poster will tell you. Springsteen’s decision to keep the whole thing raw was a stroke of genius, and has played no small impact in the album being one of his most well regarded. Due to the sombre nature of the record, Springsteen never toured it.

Nebraska’s songs are about murderers, working class people, corrupt cops, or Springsteen’s childhood. He’s always been an exceptional storyteller, and when his songs are reduced to simple melodies, sparse acoustic guitar and harmonica arrangements and his voice, it’s his ability to get into the head of his subjects and portray their stories that makes this album shine so brightly. Bruce’s vocals are low and sombre, with none of the energy of Born to Run for example. There’s a resigned longing to all the songs, as if the songs’ subjects are always hoping for more, though they know they’ll never get it.

Such dark and intimate stories are presented here with no frills beside an atmospheric reverb. The lack of backup from a band makes the whole thing more intimate, you’re there with The Boss as he tells his stories. As Pitchfork’s review states, and indeed Bruce himself, Nebraska is as much about the presentation as the content. It was written in the environment it was recorded, and the songs would have lost something when taken out of that context. Nebraska is the perfect document of a moment when Bruce Springsteen sat down in his rented house in New Jersey, and unbeknownst to himself, wrote one of the most touching acoustic albums of all time.

Song Picks: Nebraska, Mansion on the Hill

9/10

3. Music for Nine Postcards

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Yoshimura’s debut album was initially intended to be played in the Hara Museum for Contemporary Art building, but was given a wider release after it garnered interest from the visitors. The album uses only a Fender Rhodes (a type of electric piano) and a piano. In the liner notes Yoshimura stated that he was inspired by “the movements of clouds, the shade of a tree in summertime, the sound of rain, the snow in a town." The album was only released in Japan in 1982, and was not given a release outside the country until 2017, when it was picked up by the Empire of Signs label and re-issued. It’s re-release was highly critically acclaimed.

Music for Nine Postcards is minimalistic, letting each note echo into your ears, it’s sad and yet hopeful, it sparkles and hums. A triumph in minimalism it sounds well ahead of its time, and could just as well have come out this year. The whistful twinkles of Clouds, the almost childish simplicity, but sheer beauty of the melody on Blink, and the quiet euphoria of Dance PM are just samples of the treat that you’re in for if you listen to this gem. The latter is perhaps my favourite album of the track, with certain notes being just out of time enough to feel real, natural, unprogrammed, and human - whilst maintaining a level of repetition that leaves me in a gentle trance. Dance PM is everything this album does so well. Unassuming, simple, really moving and bloody gorgeous from start to finish. Music for Nine Postcards has gently weaved its way into my heart, and I can’t see it ever leaving again. In a decade of excess, it hums along quietly and patiently, waiting for everyone to notice just how damn pretty it is.

Song Picks: Blink, Dance PM,

9/10

I’ve talked about Michael Jackson’s problematic nature in a previous review (1979’s Off the Wall), and how I think the evidence is pretty strong following numerous documentaries on the subject that he did indeed abuse children and that that has undoubtedly tainted his legacy and music, but also - more importantly - caused a lot of children and families unfathomable pain and trauma. Nevertheless, I’m going to talk about the music here, which is completely sublime.

The term is overused but I’ve no reservations in calling Michael Jackson a musical genius, something which is displayed here where he’s at the peak of his powers. Quincy Jones’ production is superb, with crystal clear instrumentation, and instrumental flourishes filling every space in a way that doesn’t feel overblown, but infectious and tasteful. On the all-time-classic opener Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ , that sublime guitar and bass groove are accompanied not only by Jackson’s sublime vocals - effortlessly going from gritty to smooth and always bang in tune - but also an endless array of instrumental touches; that brass shake echoing the bass and guitar line, the synth taps, I could go on. It’s a dance masterpiece, running through your blood and into your heart.

I’ve always been less of a fan of Jackson’s slower songs, but even those are great here, and he conjures up one of his most memorable melodies in the smooth The Girl is Mine where his vocals work surprisingly well with Paul McCartney’s, while Human Nature is another example of Jones’ knack of accentuating Jackson’s vocals by following them with perfect little guitar jingles, with a skittering, superb synth part that appears twice where most artists would hang an entire song on it.

The mid-album trio of Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean are quite probably the best successive trio of songs on any album ever and Thriller and Billie Jean are undoubtedly two of the greatest pop songs of all time. The former combining gothic and pop in a way that hasn’t really been equalled before or since - those brass stabs, wolf howls, and that groove and narration by Vincent Price creating an atmosphere that’s so brilliant, that despite the fact I’ve hard it countless times, I still whoop whenever it comes on. Billie Jean features what I think is my favourite bass line ever, one which Quincy Jones apparently didn’t like and was only persuaded to use when Jackson told him it ‘made him want to dance’. I guess even the greats are wrong sometimes. The way the song starts with just the drums, before that bass line comes in, those little trumpet hums in the pre-chorus, Jackson’s imperious vocal performance, and that perfect chorus combine to make a song that’ll forever grace a list of my favourites. Hell, I’ve heard it 5,555,423 times, but yet here I am dancing around in my office chair to it, every nerve in my body revitalised. Billie Jean is a freaking beacon of life and energy smashing through your weary flesh.

Oh and I’ve not even mentioned Van Halen’s stupendous solo on Beat It have I? This album is just chock full of brilliance, so apologies if I’ve missed the odd bit.

I can totally understand those who don’t listen to Thriller, but I’m here to review the music rather than its creators, and I don’t think anyone can argue against the fact that this is one of the finest pop albums of all time.

Song Picks: Wanna Be Startin’ Something, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller

9.5/10

Classical pianist Glenn Gould initially recorded his interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) in 1955, which sold very well for a classical album and very much launched Gould’s career. He re-recorded the variations in 1981 and died a year later in 1982, when this recording was released. Pitchfork have written an excellent comparison between the two here, but as this is an article about 1982 I’ll be focusing on the latter recording, which had sold over 2 million copies by the year 2000.

As Wikipedia states, Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) “is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.”

I’ve always enjoyed listening to solo piano performances - Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert is one of my favourite live recordings of all time - but this one definitely stands out among the crowd. Gould’s virtuoisic skill eminantes from all 30 variations here, with a confident, sturdy style full of beautiful flurries. This interpretation of the Variations sounds autumnal, you can almost imagine the leaves of trees falling in time with Gould’s intricate key presses. The Goldberg Variations is a truly sumptuous piano recording, it makes for great background listening while working, but it shines when you lie down, close your eyes, and submit yourself to its joyful, hopeful music, where Gould weaves delicate worlds of piano notes seemingly effortlessly. There’s something magical about being completely transfixed by just one instrument, and that’s absolutely the case here. The Goldberg Variations is magic.

10/10

2020 - Clive's Top Albums of Every Year Challenge

January 18, 2021 by Clive in Clive's Album Challenge, Music

While I decide on my favourite album from every year in the past in this challenge, I’m also going to keep track of my favourite albums in years as I live them. This will be done a little differently to my other lists, mainly in that there’ll be more albums and less writing, but I’ll still review and include the top 10 albums according to rateyourmusic.com’s users for at least some consistency. I’ll also be sure to include any of the most critically well received albums, by grabbing the top rated albums from albumoftheyear.org; any that come high in my favourite online music reviewers’ estimations that aren’t already included; as well as, of course, anything else that I’ve enjoyed. Essentially, we should have a pretty solid list of what’s had the most buzz in 2020, both from critics’ and more general listeners’ perspectives.

Well 2020 was a year wasn’t it? But let’s not talk about all that, let’s focus on the music. So before we go onto the full list, here’s what our lovely rateyourmusic.com users rated as their top 10 albums of 2020:

#1 The Microphones - Microphones in 2020
#2 Ichiko Aoba - WIndswept Adan
#3 Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters
#4 Clipping - Visions of Bodies Being Burned
#5 Jessie Ware - What’s Your Pleasure?
#6 DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Charmed
#7 Moor Mother & Billy Woods - Brass
#8 Run the Jewels - RTJ4
#9 Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
#10 Charli XCX - How I’m Feeling Now

Those ten will be thrown into the mixer with 27 others. Let’s see who comes out the victor shall we?

What'sPleasure.jpg — 37. What’s Your Pleasure?

Jessie Ware

Undeniably well written and produced, and with plenty of catchy songs. It just didn’t feel exciting enough to keep me interested for its over 50 minute duration, often losing my attention by the final third.

Song Picks: Soul Control

6.5/10

Perhaps a little twee, but this is refreshingly positive, vocal led electronic music to warm the soul.

SP: What If, Ring, Free

7/10

Visionsofbodiesbiengburned — 35. Visions of Bodies Being Burned

clipping.

Clipping’s follow up and second part to 2019’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood creates another memorable horrorscape, which at times is more clever than affecting. You’ll be kept on your toes for the album’s 52 minute length, which features some truly memorable, at times cataclysmic moments (that pounding percussion on Something Underneath for example), but at times its doors are so meticulously crafted and complex it can be hard to work out how to get in.

Song Pick: Say the Name, Something Underneath

7/10

**34. Charmed**

**DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ**

A three hour trip through a gently euphoric land of colourful sweets and sherbet. At times unflinchingly cheesy and repetitive, but always charming. A chilled trance hug that’ll help replace that sad mist with a happier, yet equally unclear one.

Song PIcks: Pool Party, I Want You 2 Know, How Did You Know?, Charmed Life

7/10

Fleet Foxes’ fourth album is as pleasant and calming as the lapping of the sea on your toes at the beach. It blends into the background among some of the year’s other releases as it’s not the most memorable record, but there is an inescapable warmth to the sound and songwriting here.

Song Picks - Wading in the Waist-High Water, I’m Not My Season, Quiet Air/Gioia

7/10

The Strokes are back with their most enjoyable record for a while. Those warm fuzzy vocals, those catchy melodies, that breezy guitar sound. It’s all had a bit of a 2020 refresh, but the early 2000s soul is still there.

Song Picks: The Adults are Talking, Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus, Bad Decisions, Not the Same Anymore

7.5/10

The New Zealand extreme metal band’s sixth album is technically astounding, has so many time signatures you’ll find yourself in a perpetual state of confusion, and roars like a beast having a rather intense fit. It growls, it pounds, it thunders, but it never breaks, walking off again at the end of this spectacular 60 minute display unharmed, as if that earth-shattering display was simply in its DNA. It’s as challenging and full on as that description sounds though, so not for the faint hearted.

Song Picks - Stare into Death and be Still, Drawn into the Next Void , Dissolved Orders

7.5/10

Nicolas Jaar’s livelier side project continues to walk the tightrope between danceable and intriguing, never quite falling off to either side. Infectiously inventive.

Song Pick: Fantasy, You (forever)

7.5/10

saint cloud.jpg — 29. Saint Cloud

Waxahatchee

Waxahatchee’s fourth album already feels like a country and folk classic, an album with a beautiful, polished sheen. Nothing is done which doesn’t aid the song. Things are kept simple, straight and honest, and it’s fitting that an album about recovering from alcoholism should leave you feeling so emotionally cleansed. Nigh on impossible as it would have been, I just wish the latter half lived up to the first.

Song Picks - Oxbow, Can’t Do Much, Fire

7.5/10

The debut album by Canadian Micah Visser is an album he himself has said is about “growing up, moving on, and everything that happens in between”. The lyrics are simple and relatable and musically it’s full of thick synth lines with the attitude of distorted guitars. These are songs you can imagine playing as university students stand arm in arm in the middle of the dance-floor, eight £1 pints down, singing their lungs out, staring at the lights in the ceiling.

Song Picks : Keeping Up, Dear Megan, Your List, Making Peace with Suburbia

8/10

Rapper Billy Woods and activist/poet Moor Mother combine to create a dark, mysterious record that floats outside of definition. Rumbling along like a lost woolly mammoth the pairs’ words and sounds conjure up an image of a lost past.

Song Picks: Furies, The Blues Remembers Everything

8/10

The Swedish electronic duo have created quite probably the year’s most euphoric release. There’s nothing all that new here, but it’s a brilliant distillation of hand raising synth lines, electronic music tropes and melodic dreams, seemingly hoovering any negativity from your body like a despondency Dyson.

Song Picks: Portland, Attic, Arresten

8/10

FutureNostalgia — 25. Future Nostalgia

Dua Lipa

As the title suggests, this is a very current take on nostalgic genres such as disco, funk, synth-pop etc. Dua Lipa focuses on catchy songs about ‘dancing and having fun and being free and being in love’ while also making sure the whole thing has a cohesive feel. Needless to say, she’s succeeded, the sound palette is varied enough to keep it interesting while still sounding like a neat package. It’s rammed with bangers, and for its 37 minute duration you do indeed feel rather free.

Song Picks: Don’t Start Now, Cool, Physical, Love Again, Boys Will Be Boys

8/10

Un Canto por Mexico.jpg — 24. Un canto por México Vol. 1

Natalia Lafourcade

You sure as hell can’t fly to Mexico this year, but this gets you stupendously close. Lafourcade’s collection of covers and new versions of her older songs shines with all the joy and beauty of the sun on a cobbled Mexican street; bursting with life, melody and history.

Song Picks - Veracruz, Y No Vivo por Vivir , Mi Tiearra Veracruzana, Cucurrucucu Paloma

8/10

Mac Miller died two years ago as the result of an accidental drugs overdose in 2018. Circles was being worked on at the time. Posthumously completed and released by Miller’s producer, Jon Brion, the album is tastefully done, with perfectly subtle production to match Mac Miller’s relaxed sound. With a voice as smooth as polished marble, it’s the perfect lazy Sunday listen. A quietly sad and introspective goodbye from a true talent.

Song Picks - Circles, Blue World, Good News

8/10

Japanese folk singer-songwriter Ichiko Aoba’s seventh album ebbs and flows, flickers and enchants. The vocals hum like angels and the dense instrumentation sparkles as clearly and crisply as a mountain stream. Windswept Adan is rather hard to put into words, and the picture on the cover does it as much justice as anything. It’s a journey through a mysterious underwater world, where your exhalation becomes more than the exiting of oxygen, but the temporary glitter of a passed moment.

Song Picks: Dawn in the Adan, Sagu Palm’s Song

8/10

It’s difficult to call something so lo-fi a ‘wall of sound’ but within it’s limited frequency range Im Wald is a relentless storm by the Swiss one man band determined to make a racket. 2 hours in length, it sucks you into its ‘landscape of Winter’ with a sound that ceases to become a load of instruments playing as loudly as possible and seamlessly becomes one mass of emotionally affecting noise. Im Wald is an unforgettable ambient black metal experience, one that screams so loud it cleans your soul.

Song Picks - Uber den Baumen, Stimmen im Wald

8/10

setmyheartonfire — 20. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Perfume Genius

Perfume Genius’ fifth album feels both humongous - thanks to the engrossing depth of the production - and intimate - thanks to Hadreas’ wavering, delicate vocals - a combination that at times is so beautiful it somewhat buries the significant substance contained underneath. Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the musical equivalent of a flowing and captivating interpretive dance.

Song Picks - Whole Life, Nothing at All, Some Dream

8/10

Named after his daughter’s favourite word, Suddenly is the first album to feature Dan Snaith’s vocals on every track. It’s danceable and yet relaxing, and surprisingly introspective. Snaith’s knack for hooks and melody is here in spades, and his vocals add a great intimacy to the songs. The production, as you’d expect, is as smooth as the finest silk.

Song Picks: Sunny’s Time, Home, Like I loved You

8/10

18. Alfredo

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemis

Freddie Gibbs and the Alchemist combine to create a 35 minute gem packed with bars so quick it’s hard to understand what’s said, but it hardly matters when the flow and rhythm are this good. The production is as slick as an ice-rink, combining with the syrupy smooth raps to create one of the year’s most immediately enjoyable albums.

Song Picks - God is Perfect, 1985, Something to Rap About

8/10

oranssipazuzu — 17. Mestarin Kynsi

Oranssi Pazuzu

The Finnish black-metal band’s fifth album is a dark journey into the belly of a giant orc. Atmospheric, gritty, doomed, and utterly disgusting, it growls with the anger of someone dying a prolonged and pointless death.

Song Pick: Ilmestys

8/10

purplemoonlightpages — 16. Purple Moonlight Pages

R.A.P. Ferreira

Rory Allan Philip Ferreira works with Jefferson Park Boys to create an intricate jazz fuelled hip-hop album. Segal, Carmack and Parvizi’s perfect productions are old-school in their sound, but very much new-school in their alluring complexity. Ferreira’s raps lack the urgency common in the genre, but it’s refreshing to listen to someone behind the beat, someone relaxed, someone not pushing for the mainstream but happy to drift along in a tributary.

Song Picks - LAUNDRY, GREENS, CYCLES, RO TALK

8/10

Swift’s eighth album, and first of two in 2020, is a gentle, constantly catchy, and just rather gorgeous step into storytelling for an artist that has tended to be autobiographical. Lyrically, she’s able to paint with fine brushstrokes, while her pictures are framed by a singular ability to craft endlessly pleasant melodies. A little one note perhaps, but what a lovely note.

Song Picks - Exile, the last great American dynasty, August, this is me trying, epiphany

8/10

Charli XCX’s fourth album, recorded during lockdown, is a serotonin coated glitch wave of pop-gems. Immediately accessible, and yet sparkling with abstract intrigue. A party of a record in a year without parties.

Song Picks - forever, claws, detonate, anthems, c2.0

8.5/10

A Hero's Death — 13. A Hero’s Death

Fontaines D.C.

The fast paced punk of their debut has largely gone, repalced by dreamier, slower and more atmospheric tracks filled out by a massive sounding distorted guitar. Sometimes this humongous sounding production adds a layer of mystery to a beautifully simple song - such as on Oh Such a Spring - other times it makes the whole thing explode through your headphones as in Televised Mind. Catchy and angry, it feels endlessly important.

Song Picks: I Don’t Belong, Oh What a Spring, Televised Mind

8.5/10

The Big Thief lead vocalist and guitarist’s sixth solo album is a record so delicate that it feels like it might crumble under my attempt to describe it, much like a dried leaf will break with the slightest touch. In a year where hugs have been hard to come by, Lenker provides one in the most beautiful musical form, with melodies and acoustic guitar lines as soothing and comforting as a warm fire.

Song Picks: two reverse, anything, half return, dragon eyes

8.5/10

roughnrowdyways — 11. Rough and Rowdy Ways

Bob Dylan

Dylan’s 39th album is probably his best since 1997’s Time Out of Mind. Perfecting the quietly growled vocal he’s had on his last few albums, he weaves lyrics as engaging as any he’s written for some time - and which are the best on any record this year - while backed perfectly by minimalistic and pretty instrumental melodies that never distract the attention from his meticulous poetics. The 17 minute closer, Murder Most Foul, is the year’s best song in my books, and one of the most affecting things Dylan has ever written.

Song Picks - Murder Most Foul, I Contain Multitudes, My Own Version of You, I’ve Made up my Mind to Give Myself to You

8.5/10

Blackis — 10. (Untitled) Black Is

Sault

The mysterious British collective’s third album is their first of two 2020 releases. They don’t interact with the press or on social media, and it’s pretty hard to find out who they are, other than that Inflo produces them. Released a month after George Floyd’s murder, (Untitled) Black Is seems to have been recorded entirely in response. This is music of the resistance, and not the burst of anger Rage Against the Machine variety, but the kind that is always there, simmering beneath the surface. Mixing disco and r&b with the more vintage sounds of blues and soul, all 56 minutes of this album sound timely and yet timeless, classic and yet modern, accessible and yet labyrinthine.

Song Picks: Hard Life, Wildfires, Monsters, Miracles, Pray Up

8.5/10

Run the Jewel’s fourth album is potent mix of raps that flow like gnarled treacle, with lyrics as serrated and sharp as a rambo knife and beats like a bulldozer smashing through a wall (and not the polystyrene type, Boris). A non-stop march of irresistible, infectious anger.

Song Picks - yankee and the brave, ooh lala, holy clamafuck, JU$T, a few words for the firing squad

8.5/10

ewomeninmusicpt3 — 8. Women in Music Pt. III

HAIM

Haim’s third album is another collection of 70s inspired pop gems. The three sisters incorporate new genres, while never losing their characteristic approachable catchiness. Women in Music Pt. III is the kind of album I imagine anyone would like. It’s not at all challenging, but it holds up to deep listens due to its creative production, infectious melodies, and grainy warmth. It’s 2020’s best comfort record.

Song Picks: The Steps, I Know Alone, 3am, I Don’t Wanna

8.5/10

heaventopatorturedmind — 7. Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Yves Tumor

Experimental electronic artist Yves Tumor’s fourth album perfectly mixes the vintage with the modern. It’s concise and yet expansive, soaking up every genre on earth and spitting out the complex mess of what results into surprisingly digestable songs. Heaven to a Tortured mind seems to sparkle in a separate universe, refusing to be defined. Like the superstars of old, Yves Tumor is ploughing his own path, creating a sound completely his own. Quite the achievement in 2020.

Song Picks: Gospel for a New Century, Kerosene

8.5/10

Marling’s other albums, for one reason or another, have always passed me by. Songs for our Daughter however grabbed me immediately. There’s a wonderful depth to her vocals, lyrics and the production. It feels like the album of a woman who’s found herself, and that’s a pretty remarkable thing to listen to. One of the year’s most confident efforts, her delicate vibrato seemingly opening a door right into her soul, which she’s happy to lay out on the floor in one of the best minimalist folk albums for quite some time.

Song Picks - Alexandra, Hold Down, Fortune, For You

8.5/10

Phoebe Bridger’s second album is a journey of melancholoy, delicate, and reverb-drenched beauty. Occasionally exploding to anger from its general sadness, it’s a triumph of affecting and unforgettable songwriting. A musical version of that introspective night you spent alone in the corner of your room on the verge of tears, before waking up the following day with a paralysing numbness to the world.

Song Picks: Garden Song, Kyoto, Halloween, Chinese Satellite, Moon Song, Graceland Too

9/10

The Japanese-British songwriter’s debut sounds like the result of someone throwing nu metal, 2000’s and 90s pop, and a whole host of other genres into a raging cyclone. It opens with quite probably the year’s most cataclysmic pop track, Dynasty, which is followed not long after by the best nu metal track I’ve heard for ages, STFU, with a riff that sounds like a mountain coming to life. Endlessly creative and completely unpredictable, SAWAYAMA is surely the birth of our next pop superstar.

Song Picks: Dynasty, STFU, Paradisin’, Bad Friend

9/10

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is an album of creative confidence, one where Fiona has rarely stopped herself and gone, ‘nah, this sounds like a bad idea,’ but rather followed a song’s path to completion, regardless of how unconventional and odd it might sound to begin with. What results is the rarest of beasts, an album as unique as herself, using music that has come before only as smatterings of influence, while never turning them into a template. Put simply, it’s groundbreaking.

Song Picks: Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Under the Table, Drumset, On I Go

9/10

We needed Melee in 2020. With no live performances since March we needed an album that got pretty close to doing the impossible, bringing the energy of a live show onto a record. Soitsiadis’ vocals are endless body-tensed screams - where it sounds as if his voice could crack on any one, never to work again. Grissom’s lead guitar screeches and flutters like his strings are unable to sit still, and Macinski’s bass marches along as Jacob Hanlon’s drumming flurries and thrashes at breakneck speed like an out of control tornado. In Bolivia, it’s not uncommon to end up driving on what seems like a normal straight road that is actually more than twice as high as the highest mountain peak in the UK, you only notice the marvel of what you’ve just experienced when you get back to sea level and can breathe again. On Melee, there’s so little let-up that this absolute typhoon of energy almost feels normal, until it ends and you return to ‘sea level’ and immediately feel less alive, before impulsively starting the record again, in an addictive need for the energy it provides. In a year where I needed a kick up the arse to break the endless monotony, Dogleg’s debut provided just that, and what a marvel it is.

Song Picks: Kawasaki Backflip, Fox, Headfirst

9.5/10

Elverum returns under his the Microphones moniker for the first time in 17 years in a characteristically experimental effort. A 44 minute song comprised of just two chords, it hums with a delicate beauty. Elverum breezes over lines like “The thing I just realised / For probably the millionth time / That walking with my knees trembling / Is the true state of all things” as if they weren’t bloody gorgeous, setting out his stall and struggle with a mumbled bluntness that’s infinitely refreshing. It breaks the fourth wall in such a way as to make you part of the experience of its creation, and to experience this while listening to the end product puts you into a weird state of timelessness. Then, as your guard drops in this void, you realise someone with Phil Elverum’s platform and success is just as lost as your are, and that you’ll probably both remain just as lost forever, and though you don’t know each other and never will, he feels like your brother. And you sit and stare at the ceiling as the song weaves from that double tracked acoustic guitar to the heavily distorted segments and back out like a boat navigating a sporadic storm, and you realise once again “for probably the millionth time” that you’re just an insignificant piece of sand in a massive universe that doesn’t mean anything, and everything you make will one day be lost, and everything you’ve made will one day be forgotten as if it never existed in the first place. And weirdly this thought makes you smile, because there’s a melancholy freedom in realising “for probably the millionth time” the futility of it all. And you go downstairs and you hug someone in your household. And suddenly their aura feels stronger as you realise, again “for probably the millionth time”, that all that really matters is each other, and that there’s no end, and that sure your search for meaning will never bear fruit, but some fruit will drop from the branches regardless if you just look around once in a while. And then finally, you realise how cheesy that all sounds, but you couldn’t care less. The Microphones in 2020 is 2020’s masterpiece.

9.5/10