ten great records to close out an amazing decade in music:
1. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib Bandana:
Freddie Gibbs raps like the Terminator terminates, all credible threats and ceaseless forward motion. It’s perfect to a point that sometimes seems inhuman. It’s little wonder that Gibbs has met one of his greatest collaborators in the West Coast sample whiz Madlib, whose beats get stoned and loose in all the places where Gibbs’s raps tend to be tightly wound. On 2014’s Piñata and again on this year’s Bandana, the duo syncs up and delivers a record better than the sum of its parts, a selection of beats and rhymes so hard everyone involved (including guests Killer Mike, Anderson .Paak, Pusha T, Yasiin Bey, and Black Thought) is elevated in the process. (VULTURE)
2. Weyes Blood Titanic Rising:
even at her most optimistic, Mering grounds herself in reality. On the majestic opener “A Lot’s Gonna Change,” Mering yearns to return to the purity of childhood, a time when the world seemed to swell with wonder and possibility. But she cuts her fantasy short and admits that since progress is impossible to escape, why not focus on what matters right now? Later on “Mirror Forever,” she is her most blunt: “No one’s ever gonna give you a trophy/For all the pain and things you’ve been through/No one knows but you.” This advice comes off as almost gravely urgent and upholds Titanic Rising’s acceptance of difficult truths. (PITCHFORK)
3. Danny Brown U Know What I’m Sayin?:
Brown usually lunges out of beats, but here melts into them, making himself just another bright leaping dot on a cartoon assembly line. Individual production credits come from longtime collaborator Paul White, JPEGMAFIA, Flying Lotus, and Q-Tip himself, who coaxes and calms these nervy beats into a free-flowing suite, full of irregular rhythms and snipped edges. The snare snap on JPEG’s “3 Tearz” hits either a half-second later or sooner than you expect, prompting the loosest and most unpredictable verses from Killer Mike and El-P in years. Q-Tip’s own “Dirty Laundry” basically loops a full minute of “Aurora Spinray,” a quivering instrumental from the early-’70s psychedelic group Syrinx, and destabilizes the rhythm so much that listening to it feels walking across a waterbed. (PITCHFORK)
4. FKA Twigs Magdalene:
FKA Twigs had a breakup and emergency surgery to remove painful fibroid tumors she describes as being the size of fruit and returned with Magdalene, an elegant cycle about redrawing boundaries and relearning trust after a rough patch. Magdalene avoids specifics; it would rather show solidarity with aggrieved women through history than allow a man much space in this frame. It plays out more like an internal dialogue from a multifaceted artist giving herself a pep talk. The production splits the difference between abrasive electronics and tender piano sounds, sometimes in the space of a single song. (VULTURE)
5. Gaika Heaters 4 The Seaters:
an unassuming mixtape but one that all the pretenders in the UK dancehall scene desperately need to study to up their game.
6. Lizzo Cuz I Love You:
Cuz I Love You is Lizzo’s victory lap. Throughout the course of 11 tracks, she flaunts the fact that she can literally do anything. The opening title track has Lizzo resembling Whitney Houston with a soulful admission of love and fear. Oh, and by the way, she wrote it in under 10 minutes. On “Like a Girl”, she reaffirms her ability to rap with the feminist anthem many have tried, and excruciatingly failed, to create (see Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song”). She sings, “Woke up feelin’ like I just might run for President/ Even if there ain’t no precedent/ Switchin’ up the messaging/ I’m about to add a little estrogen.” Back-to-back tracks “Juice” and “Soulmate” are perfectly pop, with fun and uplifting lyrics that you’ll want to sing in the mirror every morning. On the R&B-infused “Jerome”, Lizzo succeeds at what Taylor Swift has been attempting to do for years. She absolutely roasts — and name-drops — her ex in a way that’s devoid of desperation; instead, she’s unapologetically unperturbed. (CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND)
7. Jamila Woods LEGACY! LEGACY!:
every track on LEGACY! LEGACY! is named for and inspired by a significant writer, musician or artist—many of them women, essentially all of them people of color—and their influence shines through, whether in the anecdotal biographical details of Frida Kahlo’s life or the cocksure swagger of Muddy Waters. It’s a loving tribute in large part, but what LEGACY! isn’t is pure homage. Woods empathizes, draws connections between her own experience and those of the writers and musicians that came before her, but the vision still refracts through her own lens into a prismatic spectrum of sounds and emotions that amounts to the sum of her singular vision. (TREBLE)
8. Bon Iver I, I:
the sound of old faithful re-energized.
9. Nilufer Yanya Miss Universe:
an impressively diverse collection of tracks, but most of them can be broken down to a few simple elements. There’s usually a snaking guitar line, some snapping percussion and, of course, a lot of Yanyas, always doubling back and harmonizing with themselves. She does a lot with a little. She can sweep these elements into something that sounds massive, like she does on “Angels,” or she can keep them in tightly controlled syncopation, like she does on “Heavyweight Champion Of The Year.” There’s a sense of Yanya-as-conductor on these tracks, wielding emotional swells with expertise. (STEREOGUM)
10. Prince Originals:
How wild that a chronicle of a lost era can feel so modern when all over it are musical markers of the ’80s: synths and drum machines and clap tracks and extended breakdowns and of course, sax solos. Nostalgia, even rendered fresh, works on the ear in invisible ways, as does the sequence of these songs. We careen between slow-burning love songs (witness Prince’s glorious falsetto over the heartbeat percussion of “Baby, You’re a Trip,” which Prince wrote for Jill Jones, about the time she snooped in his diary after he read hers) and more quintessential dance hits. “Holly Rock,” which he gave to Sheila E. for the Krush Groove soundtrack, is snappily upbeat, Prince punctuating the chorus with James Brown-esque flourishes (“I’m bad, good god!”) and a snarky taunt at the end: “Now try to dance like that,” he says. (PITCHFORK)
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