Without repeating the same artists twice: 1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver 2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues 3. The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt 4. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear 5. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell 6. Noah Gundersen - Carry The Ghost 7. Local Natives - Hummingbird 8. Jason Isbell - Southeastern 9. The National - Trouble Will Find Me 10. Grizzly Bear - Shields Albums I could possibly slot in at times: Grouper - Ruins (tried very hard to find a place for this one especially) Sharon Van Etten - Are We There? Kanye West - Yeezus Pinegrove - Cardinal Phosphorescent - Here's To Taking It Easy Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour Donovan Woods - Both Ways Dawes - All Your Favorite Bands Deafheaven - Sunbather Aesop Rock - The Impossible KId The Staves - If I Was any glaring omissions?
I'm going to repeat artists because I'm a hooligan and need to represent all three Foxing albums (among other things)
I just generally find him insufferable. I liked Honeybear okay when it came out. Hated Pure Comedy, though, and it kind of retroactively turned me off to what came before. I looked at your list before I saw you said you weren't repeating artists and I was shocked that the top three wasn't all Bon Iver. Haha
It was tough not including Repave because it's certainly in the list and technically a different artist/band.. but my top 10 would be super annoying if I was including multiple albums from my favorite bands.. I feel like it makes me look like a shitty music fan but truthfully 4 of my top 5 personal favorite albums from the decade are JV related. And after adding other albums by The National, FJM, Noah, TTMOE, Jason.. my top 10 would only include like 5 artists lol
Yeah you should give GFC a chance @Craig Manning. It’s a nice deconstruction of the Father John persona and works really well as the personal stakes rejoinder to his insufferable Pure Comedy cycle (though I dig a few songs on that project). Feels almost like a Randy Newman album.
Ha, true. I do think it's fine to have lists reflect what your favorite artists are, because frankly, we do all have them. I get feeling like it can be a little boring to have a few repeats though, especially if you're only working with 10 slots. That's probably how I found myself spending way too much time on compiling a top 200 and writing blurbs for it. That way, you can get the variety while still having 4-5 albums from a few favorite artists. Yeah, in fairness, I did not give this album a shot after how much I loathed Pure Comedy. I'll go back to it, though.
I love it as a reaction album. The first song almost reads like a rebuke of that whole album ("what's your politics? what's your religion? what's your intake, your reason for living?") and then it spirals into a personal crisis and bottoming out of Josh Tillman the man. Really beautiful and thoughtful stuff. In the context of the song cycle, "Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All" might be one of the saddest compositions ever.
I'm not a massive FJM fan, but ILYHB and GFC are both extremely good and Fear Fun is pretty tight. Only one I don't dig is Pure Comedy. He's also one of the best live performers I've ever seen.
"Revolution" is top-tier, "A Bigger Paper Bag" and "Smoochie" are severly underrated, and "Magic Mountain" and "In Twenty Years or So" are two of his absolute best that being said, it's FJM on steroids, so if you don't like him as it is...of course you're gonna hate that record
I love all his albums too but Pure Comedy is the one where I can understand others not liking it. If it turned you right off FJM I would sincerely recommend giving God's Favorite Customer a try, particularly Mr Tillman, Just Dumb Enough To Try, and Please Don't Die.
I wanted to hate FJM but God’s Favorite Customer is undeniably stunning. Songwriter is a perfect song
1.) Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (2015) The way Sufjan Stevens beautifully expresses such a depressing subject matter and paints a picture of his childhood vacations just leaves me in awe. This album stuck with me on such a deep level. 2.) Bon Iver - 22, A Million (2016) To be honest I actually did not like this album the first few times I listened to it; it felt like it was all over the place and I couldn't seem to find a consistent flow to keep me interested. Slowly, though, I started to realize how artistically talented Justin Vernon is and how brilliantly composed this album was. It went from not even being on my first end of the year draft list to number one that year. 3.) The National - Trouble Will Find Me (2013) I loved this album from the first time I listened to it and still love it just as much to this day. Such a great rainy, moody, Fall day album. 4.) The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten (2012) Handwritten seems like an album that could have been written in any decade and still be relevant. Brian Fallon is such an amazing songwriter. 5.) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (2010) Simply a great album! It was good seeing The Grammy's get something right when they gave this album of the year. 6.) The Menzingers - After The Party (2017) This is the album that I most enjoy rocking out to. These are some seriously catchy as fuck midwest punk rock songs! 7.) Bear's Den - Islands (2014) A really good Indie/Folk album that feels very genuine and authentic. 8.) Bad Religion - True North (2013) I don't know how Bad Religion is able to constantly put out great album after great album for 40 years. They are punk legends. 9.) Lord Huron - Strange Trails (2015) I really like the flow and songwriting on this album. The way the album changes tempo half way through is why I love this album so much. 10.) Twenty One Pilots - Trench (2018) Now for the album that is probably the most controversial is my favorite albums. There's a good chance I am going to change my mind/regret this one at some point. The reason I put this album on this list is because for whatever reason I wanted to hate this album and not put it on my end of the year list in 2018. However it just kept getting a heavy rotation in my daily listening playlist for months and I couldn't find any reason to hate it. It is catchy, lyrically it is their strongest yet, and each song felt uniquely different from one another. It was the first mainstream album I have listened to in years where I didn't cringe at any of the songs so for that reason it found its way on to this list. Honorable Mention: Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile To The Surface (2017) Less Than Jake - See The Light (2013) Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle (2015) Tiny Moving Parts - Celebrate (2016) Brian Fallon - Painkillers (2016)
I’ll edit this post when I think of more and/or change them, but a few off the top of my head (no order): PUP - Morbid Stuff The Dangerous Summer - War Paint Paramore - After Laughter The Front Bottoms - Back On Top
in no particular order: The National - Sleep Well Beast Guerilla Toss - Twisted Crystal Swans - To Be Kind Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel... Young Thug - So Much Fun Liars - Mess Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want Playboi Carti - Die Lit Street Sects - End Position Grimes - Art Angels