I'm back at it again with my annual "talking about music I liked this year even though I'm not really that good at talking about music" post! Here's some albums I liked, in no particular order :)
AJJ - Disposable Everything
My favorite AJJ album since "Christmas Island". Includes just about every flavor of AJJ that's ever existed. As a result, not every track lands for me, but the ones that do I really loved. I liked "I Wanna Be Your Dog 2" so much that I drew one of my characters singing it.
Jeff Rosenstock - HELLMODE
Another fantastic record from Jeff Rosenstock. They apparently rented out a fancy studio to record this one, and I can hear the difference, but I'm not sure I'm enough of an audiophile to have a strong opinion on that one way or the other. It sounds good! but Jeff Rosenstock would probably sound good to me even if it was coming out of a wiimote speaker. Anyway gang vocals are the most powerful force in the universe and Rosenstock is happy as always to remind us of this
Chris Farren - Doom Singer
I'm a big fan of Antarctigo Vespucci, but I don't often listen to Chris Farren's solo stuff. This is his first solo album that I've loved all the way through. I was about to say something like "I usually don't listen to music as slow or as poppy as some of these tracks," but my taste has broadened so much in the past few years that I probably can't say shit like that anymore. Every track on this one works for me. The explosion of the chorus on "Screensaver" has a physical effect on my brain
Leon Chang - I spent the whole summer playing video games
I haven't listened to Leon Chang's music all that regularly since like 2017, when 'bird world' first came out, but he's been putting out new music pretty consistently since then, and I always enjoy giving his new albums a listen when they come out. This latest album is about 20 minutes of really soft, relaxing, jazzy electronic music, contrasting last year's "leon kart", which was all really upbeat and energetic tracks made for a kart racer that doesn't exist. I feel like I lost my train of thought. This is a good album to lose your train of thought to.
Aivi & Surasshu - Meanwhile
Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time Aivi and Surasshu have had a chance to make an album for themselves (that is, not for a video game or TV show) in over 10 years, so it's pretty nice that they were finally able to find the time to do that. This album reminds me of what made me love with their music in the first place. Lots of neat chiptune sounds, beautiful piano, and funky chords with names that probably look like calculus if you write them all out
Vernon Jane - Chestpains and Sidepieces
Including this one almost feels like cheating, since half the tracks on it are from their 2022 EP 'Wifey', which I included on my list from last year. But the new songs are great and so are the old ones and I can do whatever I want.
Mom Jeans. - Bear Market
Honestly, I kind of wasn't expecting this one to make the list, but every time I listen to it I like it more and more. Bear Market is something like an acoustic album, consisting of songs from all across Mom Jeans's previous discography, played on (mostly) acoustic instruments, with many of the songs being re-imagined or rearranged in some way. Funnily enough, a lot of the songs end up being a little faster and more upbeat, which is pretty much the exact opposite approach of other albums like this that I've listened to before. Anyway, when I first listened to this I was sort of underwhelmed, and my gut reaction was "I don't know if I like any of these better than the originals", which is a very silly way of thinking about things, and a mindset that I've been trying to shake in general when it comes to things like live music and covers. The point isn't to replace or compete with the original. It's to make a cool and fun alternate version of a song! And this is a whole album of cool and fun alternate versions of good-ass songs.
