What a weird era we’re living in, friends. I’m not yet sure how we’ll look back upon the music being made during this mad, frantic decade, but it strikes me that pop music has gone kaleidoscopic, fragmented and influenced by our digital leanings and our growing, gnawing anxieties at a time when so much seems to be tenuous and teetering on the edge.
Here are the albums I kept coming back to in 2019 for solace or release.
Sharon Van Etten — Remind Me Tomorrow
There’s a line in the haunting song “Jupiter 4” that kills me: “it’s true that everyone would like to have met,” Van Etten sings, pausing for effect as the title synthesizer swirls, “A love so real.” It’s a good entry point for this album, a meditation on on love, contentedness and moving into new phases of life from a singer-songwriter who has branched out into acting, pursuing a degree in psychology and motherhood that broadens her sonic palette, courtesy of lots of ’80s-style electronics. There’s an appealing diversity of styles here, from the hypnotic drone of “Memorial Day” to the New Wave churn of “Comeback Kid” and the trip-hop of “You Shadow.”
Sudan Archives — Athena
Sudan Archives, the performing name of Cincinnati-born Brittney Parks, has been releasing fine EPs and singles for a few years now. Her first proper album showcases her unique west African fiddle soul, sprinkled with interesting textures and tactile beats, often making use of hand claps or finger snaps. From the lush and sultry “Down on Me” and the slow-jam burn of “Iceland Moss” to the hypnotic groove of “Glorious,” it’s a welcome and exciting breath of fresh air.
Priests — The Seduction of Kansas
Now a trio following the departure of bassist Taylor Mulitz, Priests filed an album that diversified their sound, adding new time signatures, textures, production and instrumentation while delivering consistently excellent songs. They’re about living in the Trump era, but they go a step further than the anti-Trump sentiment that fueled their excellent previous album, “Nothing Feels Natural” — one of my favorites from 2017 — by trying out empathy and understanding. The album’s title is a nod to a 2004 book about the rise of conservative populism, and the lyrics reference things like Applebee’s, dollar stores, the Koch brothers and the Mujahideen. Musically, it draws from late ‘70s, early ‘80s post-punk acts like Wire, PIL and even early B-52s.
The Comet is Coming — Thrust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
The leadoff track, “Because the End Is Really the Beginning,” sounds like the score of “Blade Runner.” The saxophone skronk of “Summon The Fire” is set against synths and a driving beat and similarly sounds like the score to an ‘80s sci-fi film. There’s a future dystopic vibe running throughout this album from the London trio, which is steeped in love of Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders-style freakouts and uptown electro funk. More recently the group released “The Afterlife,” which was recorded during the same sessions, was meant as an accompaniment and is also highly worthwhile.
Raphael Saadiq — Jimmy Lee
Named after an older brother who died of drug overdose after contracting HIV, “Jimmy Lee” is Raphael Saadiq’s attempt to come to grips with the many demons from his upbringing. One of his brothers was murdered. Another took his life with a shotgun (Saadiq has said he and his father and another sibling cleaned up his remains themselves). He blends it all with his Neo-soul and excellent sense of composition for something that is darker than “Stone Rollin,” his upbeat predecessor from 2011. Standouts are the anthemic “This World is Drunk,” the “Riot”-era Sly Stone stoned funk of “I’m Feeling Love” and the impassioned protest of “Rikers Island.”
Michael Kiwanuka — KIWANUKA
Retro flourishes abound on the British singer-songwriter’s third album, which sounds like a psychedelic soundtrack to a 1970s movie that was never made. The film wouldn’t quite be blacksploitation, though there are echoes of artists like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield, and the songs drip with tenderness and lush orchestration as a bed to the spare guitar parts.
the captivating combination of strings and a simple guitar riff lend a cinematic reverie to “Hard to Say Goodbye.” Produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo
Jenny Lewis — On the Line
Jenny Lewis’ latest album is a consistent mix of top-rate songs, rich sounds and production, and lyrical prowess. Songs like “Dogwood,” with its melancholy, and “Wasted Youth,” with its lyrics about “sliding’ down a bong” and “I wasted my youth / on a poppy,” suggest a soundtrack to the end of the party. Drug and alcohol references abound in these songs, as if she’s looking back on an aimless youth and failed romances. Then there’s the impossibly catchy “Red Bull and Hennessey,” a contender for song of the year. Its chord progression closely tracks that of Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach,” something I noticed after the latter popped into my head after the first few times I heard the former. I keep waiting for someone to do a mashup.
Juliana Hatfield — Weird
There were times during Juliana Hatfield’s solo heyday in the ‘90s where I wondered whether she’d make it, not to the top of the charts, exactly, but out of her own tortured mental foxhole. Luckily for us, she has soldiered on, despite what she says is a lack of much to show for it financially. On “Weird,” she shows that she has settled into her melancholy and introversion, and she’s fine with it, with a set of tight, hooky songs.
UB40 — For the Many
Whatever happened to this sprawling collective of English musicians following their string of 1980s and ‘90s hits that began with “Red Red Wine,” “ I mostly couldn’t say. There’s even a cheeky song on their newest album titled “What Happened to UB40,” sung in a rude boy style by founding member Earl Falconer.
The pop-reggae band has remained productive over the decades, even if many original members have left, including founding singer Ali Campbell (his brother Duncan now handles main vocal duties). But the new album is a strong and unexpected return to form, with undertones of the roots and dub styles that characterized their excellent early releases, as well as the tight musicianship they’ve always been known for, plus plenty of toasting and rude boy. The album’s name is a nod to the British Labour Party, and the band’s multicultural makeup feels in and of itself like a protest in the Trump era.
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