It's that time of the year again: where I contemplate the past 12 months and start thinking about how I can make lists of things I liked. This year I've been listening to a lot of music, and I wanted to share 5 musics that impacted me, but I didn't want to just do "best albums". Instead, I've organized them into 5 distinct categories, none of which is better or worse than the other:
- Music that impacted me deeply
- Music that is just Extremely Fucking Cool:
- Music that made me excited about music as a whole:
- Music that I will listen to for the rest of my life:
- Music that is unusual but compelling
I've defined "musics" as "anything that creates audible noise and makes me feel emotions". For me, that's mostly going to be albums, but it could also include such things as:
- Individual songs
- Live concerts
- 45 minutes of random noise generated by a machine that hates me
- A spoken word album
- The birds outside my window in the morning during springtime
So basically anything. But you understand the vibe when I say "music". You'll note that I'm also not talking about music released this year, but music listened to this year. I don't particularly care about when it was released, but I do care about my journey this year.
I'll include the format I'm using at the very bottom of this post if you want to copy/paste it for yourself. All album art is hotlinked directly from Last.fm. Here are My 5 Musics Of The Year
Music that impacted me deeply:
Kitchen Tea Thankyou by Minimum Chips
It's hard to measure the impact of this album on me. Most of the time, I think of impactful music as something that hits me in the chest or makes my brain feel staticky or some other obvious, immediate reaction.
But this album is a slow, slow impact for me. It's a dreamy pop album from 2005 by a band that made Just This Album, then broke up. It has baroque influences (like, literally baroque music) but is also shoegazey, among other things. It feels totally singular to me. I've never heard anything quite like it - that should be enough of a recommendation in my opinion.
I've listened to this album 12-13 times in total, and it feels like it's sunk in somewhere very deep. It's almost hypnotic to me, in a soft, uninvasive way. It's carved out a little room in my brain and decorated it with nice, antique furniture and when I'm feeling unusual I pop this album on and go there. I love it, and I must recommend that you listen to it some day before you die.
Music that is just Extremely Fucking Cool:
New Long Leg by Dry Cleaning
It's hard to describe this directly for me, but it's a whole album of a very dry-sounding british woman talking over music that reminds me of The Smiths, but moreso. It's extremely Capital C Cool and seems almost detached at first.
But repeat listens will reveal a real depth to the lead singer's performance - she pulls lots of emotions out of every statement, even if the delivery seems dry at first. There are also a ton of parts that make me laugh or smile, like being in on a joke with the cool kids for once. There's also a ton of rage just under the surface of the lyrics.
Speaking of which, the lyrics are also very mysterious. I believe I read that her lyric writing process involves a lot of automatic writing, which makes sense. They seem like nonsense when taken literally, but as a whole paint a sort of impressionistic landscape of emotion. I can't believe I wrote that sentence but it's the best way I can think to describe it!
Absolutely untouchable vibes. Extremely fucking cool.
Music that made me excited about music as a whole:
Visiting Narcissa by Patricia Taxxon
This album sounds like my brain does on a good day. It's crinkly and beepy and thumpy and crunchy and chaotic (but also ordered) and very, very physical, like beads and a single bronze bell being spun in a washing machine. Like a beautiful star made of glass shattering against a gong in slow motion.
This album makes me want to fight god.
It also has the best "oh, there are vocals on this song now??" drop I've ever heard in my life.
Music that I will listen to for the rest of my life:
SPACE 1.8 by Nala Sinephro
Ambient Space Jazz by an accomplished harpist. If that's not enough for you to go listen to it right now, I don't know what else I can say.
Like, genuinely, just go listen to it right now. This is a permanent mainstay in my listening rotation for a reason.
Music that was unusual but compelling:
ura. by OOPARTS
I have to include something by Halley Labs, which is a sort of collective label for a bunch of artists who also happen to all be the same person. This extremely prolific artist might be my favorite musician of all time just based on the sheer volume of music I listen to by them.
This is the Music that caught me off guard the most. It's a sort of dark ambient electronica EP with just 4 songs. As I said, I'm mostly an Album person - I want to get in a vibe for at good long time. But this is an impeccable EP that lasts just 30 minutes, and every minute is worth it.
The vibes here are walking along a lakeshore at night, feeling the chill on your skin, seeing a full moon reflected in the water, wondering what might live beneath the surface, finding a strange glinting rock in the dirt, hearing the rumble of distant machinery, getting turned around and forgetting which way is back home for a moment. It's one of my favorites in a long time.
--
Okay that's it!! The format and categories are below for anyone who wants to copy/paste and write their own, which I highly highly encourage you to do.
In fact, I would love love love if people participated in this with replies to this post, because I want to see all the music that made your list! Feel free to change the categories as well, but I think these 5 are pretty fun.
## Music that impacted me deeply:
### [*Name* by Artist](link-to-album)
> description
## Music that is just Extremely Fucking Cool:
### [*Name* by Artist](link-to-album)
> description
## Music that made me excited about music as a whole:
### [*Name* by Artist](link-to-album)
> description
## Music that I will listen to for the rest of my life:
### [*Name* by Artist](link-to-album)
> description
## Music that was unusual but compelling:
### [*Name* by Artist](link-to-album)
> description
lovely list! i particularly enjoyed the one by OOPARTs. that's one i'll be carrying along with me.
didn't reeeeeally listen to music this year. over the past couple years as things got pretty hectic, ive struggled with actually focusing on music as a hobby. cultivating my taste and repertoire. most stuff ive listened is just youtube recommended playlists, vtuber covers of vocaloid songs and post-soundcloud phonk / drill guys. that's not a lot of actual albums. these past few months have been a bit clearer though, so im picking myself back up.
anyway here's my very short list using cania's categories as a starting board
Music that impacted me deeply:
Island by Asunojokei
Music that is just Extremely Fucking Cool:
Kyougen by Ado
ado is great. god. truly one of the Voices of The Decade and whatnot. music journos will write about that but its actually true in this case, i think. not because of angst or the kind of unapologetic openness to the japanese entertainment industry writ large (its the 2020s; there is no "selling out" anymore).
the reason is actually that people like her sing about how clearly superior they are, and how you all bore her and should just shut up and get your teeth kicked in as if she's not a massive dork who streams minecraft with the shittiest setup you'll ever see once in a blue moon
Music that made me excited about music as a whole:
Quebra Asa Vol. 1 by Fernando Motta, Jonathan Tadeu e Vitor Brauer
these guys are my coming-of-age darlings and even though they barely play together nowadays they still can sorta get together in a studio every now and then and leave with something that is fun. it makes me jittery just thinking about it. one of the few brazilian rock bands writing lyrics that my stupid brain can enjoy.