The Best of Q3 2022: Part 1

Not to sound like a guy in a suit, but it’s the end of another “quarter,” and *adjusts tie* that means it’s time to tell you about some of my favorite releases from the last few months. After all, what better way to celebrate the return of fall than getting all sentimental and retrospective?

If you’d like to read about my favorite albums of Q1 and Q2, click here or here. Other than that, read on for some of the best releases of the summer. Part 2 is coming soon because a bunch of great albums dropped in the last few weeks of September, and I’m working on my own time, baby.

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Brady - You Sleep While They Watch

Flesh & Bone Records

Sam Boyhtari has had a busy year. Somewhere between nationwide tours with Foxing, Home Is Where, and Infant Island, his band Greet Death managed to drop a phenomenal EP called New Low. Forecasted by a breadcrumb of fantastic singles, this 21-minute collection of songs found the Michigan shoegazers digging a little deeper and going a little darker. Impressive for a group whose last album is literally called “New Hell.” After releasing that EP out into the world and relocating himself to a different part of the Midwest, Boyhtari finally had enough time to dedicate to his Chicago-based heavy rock project simply called Brady. 

Self-described on Bandcamp as “the perfect blend of hick shit, innuendo, and a sad story,” it’s hard to think of a better elevator pitch for the group than that. Fans of Greet Death will likely feel at home here, as most of the LP still hovers around a baseline heavy rock sound. What's surprising, however, is just how much Boyhtari has to say and how he decides to present it. 

Much like the writing on his other project, songs like “Radon Blues” and “Family Photos” find their structure with a catchy phrase and a compelling instrumental build. Meanwhile, on songs like “Big Future” and “Catherine,” Boyhtari has enough time to get beautifully poetic and surprisingly grounded. The entire album weaves a stark, urgent, but ultimately beautiful portrait of life in 2022. You Sleep While They Watch is an album that is equal parts crushing and compassionate. A necessary balance to strike in the face of our increasingly-oppressive world. 

Read our full view of You Sleep While They Watch here. 

Carpool - For Nasal Use Only

Acrobat Unstable Records

Can we please talk about Carpool? I’ve been dying to talk about Carpool. For basically the whole summer, I’ve been lucky enough to have For Nasal Use Only on repeat. The EP has soundtracked foggy walks along the Oregon coast, much-needed trips back home, and long flights to visit my girlfriend. Simply put, there’s no collection of songs I would rather have tied to the memories of this past season, and you should be excited at the prospect of attaching these potent tracks to memories of your own this fall. 

The latest dispatch from the Rochester emo rockers offers dancy spurts, catchy chants, and even a left-field acoustic number. After an impressive debut album in 2020 with Erotic Nightmare Summer, the band’s latest EP proves that the group’s penchant for immaculate and hooky emo rock was no fluke. Carpool is one of those bands that make it easy to be a fan. The good news is, with Nasal Use finally out and even more exciting things on the horizon, there’s never been a better time to buckle up and join the ride.

Read our review of lead single “Anime Flashbacks” here. 

Holy Fawn - Dimensional Bleed

Triple Crown Records

Can you feel that? It’s the push of cold fall air gently cresting over the horizon. This change of seasons brings not just crisp weather but legions of darkened shoegaze to earbuds worldwide. Something about the dead leaves and the colder nights makes the genre feel slightly more appropriate right now than during the throes of a summer heatwave. 

Dimensional Bleed is the sophomore album from Holy Fawn and a record that feels tailor-made for this time of year. The release sees the six-piece effortlessly shift and morph between blackened metal, shoegaze, post-rock, and more. There’s a shared murkiness to all these sounds that makes the band feel like a wendigo or a smoke monster, silently gliding behind the listener, waiting for the just right time to unleash their violent fury upon their prey. Songs like “Death is a Relief” and “Lift Your Head” stick out as initial highlights, but really, the whole appeal of this album is slipping in and willingly surrendering yourself to the music for 49 minutes. 

NATL PARK SRVC - EP4

Self-released

Where have all the indie rockers gone? It’s a question that’s been on my lips (and apparently everyone else’s) as of late. For the last half-decade, NATL PARK SRVC has been crafting sweeping indie rock songs with an emphasis on early-aughts sounds that Pitchfork would have eaten up back in the day. For the last half-decade, the group has also been refining their bombastic big band style, typically boasting around seven members or more depending on the occasion. 

While I loved last year’s The Dance, at times, the full-length left me feeling looped around and overwhelmed over the course of its 48-minute runtime. For that reason alone, the five tracks on EP4 feel like a more concise and compact sample platter of what this band does best. Opener “BLOODY” is a hard-grooving track that builds to an ultra-dancy Frank Ferdinand guitar riff as lead singer Dylan Wotock croons, “why don’t you punch me in the faaaace / why don’t you put me in my plaaace,” stretching the last syllables of each line like a kid playing with silly putty. After a Billy Corgan name drop and a Will Toledo-style monologue, this chorus dovetails with a series of carefree vocalizations for an ornate display that bands like Spoon could only dream of. 

From there, lead singles “UP ALL NIGHT” and “VHS” keep the forward momentum with boppy instrumentals featuring the standard mix of guitar, drums, and bass, but accentuated by everything from violin to saxophone and trombone. It’s an ambitious feast for the ears, all spectacularly produced and remarkably clear. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention “SUMMERSIDE,” an undeniable queer anthem that navigates the muddy and often cliche-ridden waters of figuring out your own sexuality. 

The EP’s crown jewel can be found in its closer “PSALM 11:02 PM,” a remorseful and morbid piece with an unshakable Midwest flavor. The song finds Woytcke lamenting the funeral of a close friend, turning their individual grief into a sort of communal outpouring backed by the force of the full band. Mentions of funerals give the song a raw and open-hearted feeling that evokes the honesty of everyone’s favorite Hotelier song. Instead of finding catharsis in a throat-shredding shout, NATL PARK SRVC ascend into a hypnotic repetition of “I still think about it sometimes / I still dream about this sometimes,” which Woytcke sings over a group chant and a winding riff that eventually finds its rest on a charming bed of strings. A beautiful close to a stellar 20-minute release where no second is wasted. 

Pool Kids - Pool Kids

Skeletal Lightning

Throughout their self-titled sophomore record, Pool Kids lay out the various phases and emotions of a breakup, then shuffle them around, deconstructing the experience and distilling it into an explosive and cathartic album-length experience. Their first collection of songs as a full band (outside of a half-jokey hardcore double called POOL), Pool Kids balances its emotional heft with impressively technical instrumentation that will stagger even the most jaded math rock fans. 

At points, this album feels like an amalgamation of every genre I’ve ever loved growing up: emo, metal, pop-punk, prog, and 2000s alt-rock are all represented, everything wrapped in crystal clear production courtesy of Mike Vernon Davis. It’s a testament to both the band’s musicianship and vision that everything folds in so nicely under the Pool Kids banner. 

Pool Kids is unique in that it’s a breakup album in neither the “boo hoo, I’m so sad” territory or the vengeful “fuck you, I will make you pay” camp. At times it has elements of both, but the part that feels true to life is how jumbled and non-linear the process feels. Breakups aren’t all raw heartbreak or revenge fantasies; it’s both of those and much more. Breakups are pity and longing, regret and self-sabotage, moments of reflection and reconnection. Pool Kids recognizes the many facets of emotional turmoil and recomposes them into something anyone can find a piece of themselves in.

Read our review of lead single “That's Physics, Baby” here.

Quinn Cicala - Arkansas

Self-released

Quinn Cicala is back, yee-fuckin-haw. Since 2017, Cicala has quietly been making some of the best alt-country in the whole country. I’ll admit, I first found my way to the musician as a way to ween myself off Pinegrove, and while that may still be a sticky comparison for some, it at least gives you a point of reference for what to expect with this EP. The good news is I eventually grew to love the Cicalaverse on its own merits, and I’d even go as far as to call “24” one of the best songs of all-time. Heavily grounded in the American South, the five songs Quinn Cicala offers up on Arkansas are expectedly pleasant and beautifully compelling. Guided by a folksy twang and breezy instrumentals, these songs unfurl like a sleepy cat in a warm sunbeam. The humid southern air clings to the bones of this release. Whether the band is depicting true love in the heartland or talking about frivolous news publications, it’s easy to find a home within these songs, even if it’s only for a quarter-hour.

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Sargent House

I ran the numbers, and it turns out Russian Circles have been a presence in my life for 16 years. My Russian Circles fandom is officially old enough to drive. Ever since I heard the pummeling guitar of “Death Rides a Horse” back in high school, I’ve been hooked on everything the Chicago trio has put out over the course of their hyper-consistent career. Always a reliable source of instrumental metal riffage, Russian Circles seem locked into a new mode of operating on Gnosis, sounding tighter and heavier than they have in years. Every style and speed of the band is represented here; “Conduit” is a ferocious and gnashing song, while the title track is a slow-simmering black cloud that mounts into a torrential downpour. Regardless of where I’m at in life or what I’m doing, I can always count on Russian Circles to be there, scoring the scene with brutal metal that crushes me in a warm embrace. 

An Introduction To Post-Rock

Sometime in the spring of 2011, I was assigned to read The Metamorphosis for a high school lit class. I was a little bummed that I had to spend some of my spring break doing homework, but it was a class I enjoyed, so I did it anyway. That year my family spent our spring break in a little house on the Oregon coast, and it was (unexpectedly) rainy for most of the week. Given the weather, I decided what better time to sit down and read this trippy-ass short story.

I laid down on my rented bed in my room that smelled distinctly “beachy” and listened to the raindrops patter against the window as the skies turned greyer and darker. I turned on my trusty iPod and decided that now was the time to listen to that new band I heard about called “Explosions in the Sky.” I put on The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, the album with the most striking title, and cracked open my copy of the book.

For the next 40-some-odd minutes, I became so absorbed in the reading that I completely forgot about the outside world until the album came to a close. It was a meditative and (fittingly) transformative listening experience. I’d never heard anything quite like that album, and I immediately started another one of the band’s half-dozen records I had loaded onto my iPod before leaving Portland. 

Over the course of the next year, I had an absolute love affair with post-rock. A love that was kindled by one record soon grew into a new realm of sound that I relished exploring. It wasn’t like the other rock music I was used to, it completely calmed my mind and helped me focus on my work, whatever that was at the time. 

The genre single-handedly helped me get through college, soundtracking thousands of hours of reading, studying, and writing. To this day, post-rock still offers some of the most breathtaking and timeless songs in my entire music library, and I believe it’s a genre that’s worth submerging yourself in entirely. 

What follows are nine albums intended to offer a crash course of the post-rock/instrumental genre. These are personal favorites from bands that I love, all with varying degrees of significance within the actual “scene” itself, but albums that I would recommend to anyone, regardless of background or experience with this type of music. I genuinely believe that these albums serve a dual purpose as a sort of driving but distraction-free background music while also being some of the most moving and compelling pieces of art ever created. 

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Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003)

Arguably one of the few unanimous post-rock records, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place would easily be on the genre’s Mount Rushmore. While Explosion In The Sky’s debut is a wonderful bit of glittering heavy-metal post-rock, I’d argue the band has improved their sound, production, and approach to music with nearly every record. Their sophomore effort is a more mellow and moody atmospheric experience (that also happens to bear one of my favorite songs of all time), but it wasn’t until The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place that the band found themselves at the forefront of the scene with a budding new audience. Thanks in large part to their contributions to the Friday Night Lights score, but also because Cold Dead Place is a tight, economic album that showcases exactly what the genre is capable of in its purest form. 

Opening with the faint siren song of a single guitar on “First Breath After a Coma,” the record eases the listener into the band’s style like a doctor birthing a baby. The group gently layers multiple shimmering guitars over a subtle heart-beat-like floor tom keeping time. They play with adding and removing elements until a steady drumroll sweeps the listener away, and just like that, we’re off. The band crests and crescendos with masterful ease throughout the record, whether it’s the pensive “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean” or the lovestruck “Your Hand In Mine.” It may only be five tracks in total, but that doesn’t make this record any less fulfilling. I literally could not imagine a better entry point into the genre for myself or anyone else. 

Mogwai - Come On Die Young (1999)

On the polar opposite end of The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, we have Mogwai’s sophomore album Come On Die Young. These two records are not connected in any way, other than the fact that I listened to them roughly around the same time and they both felt like stark counter-points to each other. While Cold Dead Place is a light, airy, and positive album Come On Die Young is a dark, confining, and foreboding piece of music. Just look at the two covers next to each other and tell me which one you think is going to be more oppressive. While I believe that the members of Mogwai are all great people, this record is simply one of the most evil things I’ve ever heard. This is darker than black metal, more unnerving than a horror movie soundtrack, and more overwhelming than anything you’ve ever heard. 

Opening with a swirling, distorted soundscape on “Punk Rock:” the band lets a soundbite from a 1977 Iggy Pop interview provide the thesis statement for the record: “Well, I'll tell you about punk rock, "punk rock" is a word used by dilettantes and, uh, and, uh heartless manipulators about music, that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it and give everything they have to it.”

After that articulate introduction from the godfather of punk, the band pulls the rug out from under the listener with “Cody,” a precious and slow-moving love song about an ever-shifting relationship existing in an ever-shifting world. While it took me entirely too long to realize that “Cody” wasn’t named after a person, but instead an initialism of the album name, it also took me entirely too long to realize that this is the only song on the record with vocals. From there, “Helps Both Ways” utilizes a sample of John Madden commentary to navigate the murky waters of a crushingly moody riff. Meanwhile, “Kappa” and “Christmas Steps” both boast lumbering instrumentals while “Ex-Cowboy” features the more searing and rapid guitar strumming pattern dripping in reverb that the genre is most known for. Come On Die Young is far from a happy album, but it possesses an emotional catharsis the likes of which few other genres can provide. This record, combined with Cold Dead Place offer an excellent overview of the range that this genre can have with Come On Die Young existing in a more rotted and sinister end without being too offputting to newcomers.

This Will Destroy You - Young Mountain (2006)

Yet another record I’d put on the post-rock Mount Rushmore, the debut album from This Will Destroy You exists somewhere on the tonal spectrum in between Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai. Blending the cinematic builds of Explosions and the more brooding pensiveness of Mogwai, Young Mountain lies at a healthy middle ground of post-rock. 

From the first majestic keystrokes and gently-falling guitar notes of “Quiet,” you can immediately tell this record is something different. There are heart-pumping builds on “There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease,” there’s world-conquering uplift on “I Believe in Your Victory,” and there’s hypnotic glitchiness on “Grandfather Clock.” While the band arguably has bigger “hits” on their self-titled record with songs like “The Mighty Rio Grande,” it’s hard to argue with the punctuality of Young Mountain. This is the debut of a band who knew exactly what they were doing and exactly the kind of art they wanted to put out into the world.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)

Quite possibly the defining work of the post-rock genre, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven contains only four tracks, each clocking in at roughly twenty minutes apiece. It’s less of an album and more of an experience that the band shepherds the listener through. These songs, or acts, are each composed of different movements, all of which are depicted in the vinyl in a timestamped illustrated diagram depicting the “intensity” of each segment. While that gatefold makes this a rewarding album to sit down with, focus on, and follow along with closely, these are ultimately just ornate layers of detail on top of an already-beautiful album.

Album opener “Storm” begins with a triumphant build of guitar, bass, and drums, eventually layering on horns, a string section, and an entire orchestra as the track gains momentum. This is not the dark and grim apocalyptic band that recorded F# A# ∞, or even Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada two years prior, this is Godspeed as a blossoming flower opening up to see the world as their stage. However, by the time the first track ends (a movement called “Cancer Towers on Holy Road Hi-Way”), it’s clear that there’s something more sinister brewing just beneath the surface. 

“Static” features ominous demonic hums that build to a cataclysmic explosion. “Sleep” is at once a dreamy, floaty, and wistful bad trip. Finally, the title track brings things home with a soaring and anthemic song that mounts into a beautiful conclusion. Quite frankly, Lift Your Skinny Fists is an album that must be experienced to be understood, there’s a reason why it’s become the defacto post-rock album for millions of fans. 

Sigur Rós - ( ) (2002)

At some point near the end of my high school experience I stumbled upon Sigur Rós, and that discovery (combined with copious amounts of metalcore) helped me realize how little lyrics really matter to me. With all of their songs being either instrumental, sung in Icelandic, or “Hopelandic” (a gibberish blend of English and Icelandic that the band invented), I didn’t understand a word these guys were saying. Don’t get me wrong; a well-written song is great, but as far as I’m concerned good lyrics are just a cherry on top, not a necessity. 

While some may sing the praises of their breakthrough Ágætis byrjun or the overwhelmingly pleasant Takk..., I believe ( ) to be their most consistent album. Comprised of 8 “untitled” songs, the record is divided into two even halves separated by 36-seconds of silence and bookended by two clicks of static. The first half of the album is more bright and optimistic, while the second half is more bleak and desolate. It’s a loose concept album in that sense, but ( ) offers a beautiful depth and breathtaking range of emotions over the course of its 76-minute running time. It bears the strange, otherworldly qualities that Sigur Rós is known for while still feeling grounded enough in reality that a newcomer can wade in comfortably.

Russian Circles - Enter (2006)

Admittedly a half-step away from post-rock and toward straight-up metal, the debut album from Russian Circles is a beautiful, heavy, and riff-oriented instrumental post-metal album. Packed with precise guitar riffs, tight drumming, and world-shattering basslines, this record truly has a little bit of everything. 

From the clockwork-like build of “Carpe” to the crushing bounding riffage on “Death Rides a Horse,” the record is a showcase for the absolute breadth of music that can be created with just three instruments. There’s the deeply-feeling “You Already Did” and “Micha,” both of which are palpable with remorse and pain, all without saying a word. While later Russian Circle albums may be tighter, darker, and more cinematic, there’s something to be said for the staggering range of both emotion and tonality on display in the 44 minutes of Enter.

Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull (2008)

Yet another half-step away from post-rock, just in the opposite direction, Earth are the all-important progenitors of drone as we know it. Characterized by spaced-out repetitive riffs that roll on like long arid stretches of desert, drone is a genre all about soundtracking a time and place that exists only in your mind. The albums work like witchcraft, slowly casting a spell on the listener’s mind until it’s transported to another world far away from this one. Through this slowly-unfolding transportive property, these bands are able to unwind gorgeous riffs that establish a sense of time and place unlike any other genre.

The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull is a mythical album. Aside from its biblical title and gorgeous leather-bound vinyl, the songs here capture Earth at the absolute peak of the band’s mid-2000’s era. Unlike their early trailblazing half-hour dissonant recordings or their more recent vocal pivot, The Bees Made Honey offers (relatively) punctual tracks that swirl and cascade around the listener with unparalleled divinity. Songs like “Miami Morning Comedown II” shimmer with opulent mid-morning light while tracks like “Hung From The Moon” feel more like a desert at twilight; blue and expansive but still hot enough for heat haze to be prevalent. The entire album is like a beautiful mirage, it almost seems too good to be true, but then you reach the end and realize you’ve made it out of the desert. 

Mogwai - Mr. Beast (2006)

Mogwai’s discography is immaculate. While Young Team introduced Mogwai to the world and Come On, Die Young has a special place in my heart (literally the first thing ever posted to this site, which I do not recommend you read) I’d argue Mr. Beast is also one of the best entry points into the band’s world. Their work ranges from spacy love songs, glistening immaculate creations, pensive piano-led remixes, and glitchy electronic diversions, but Mr. Beast is a personal favorite merely because it’s wall-to-wall riffs. While Mogwai are no strangers to The Riff (just listen to “My Father My King” or “Xmas Steps”), the band’s fifth album is arguably the most consistently heavy thing that they have ever created. 

“Auto Rock” kicks things off with a piano melody that gradually mounts along with electronic elements, pounding drums, and buzzing guitar that grows into a rhythmic tribal beat that abducts you into the world of the record. “Glasgow Mega-Snake” turns the metal side of Mogwai up to ten as multiple distorted guitars and bass coalesce into one fast-paced riff that pushes the listener forward like a violent current. Other highlights include the soft and electronic “Acid Food,” the anthemic “ Travel is Dangerous,” the riff-bearing “We’re No Here,” or the penultimate credit roll of “I Chose Horses.” 

One of the things that makes Mr. Beast a fantastic entry point to post-rock is that it’s very atypical of the genre. Lots of the songs here have vocals of some sort, and the average song length is about four minutes. It’s also an extremely-varied album with different sounds and approaches that always keeps you wondering what’s next. Truly one of the band’s many masterworks. 

Slint - Spiderland (1991)

Often cited as the record that invented the post-rock genre, Slint’s Spiderland is a masterpiece. If it wasn’t evident by the cover, this is an album that was created by a bunch of teenagers. Spiderland sold fewer than 5,000 copies, and the band broke up before the record could even be considered a cult hit… but cult status it soon achieved, eventually paving the way for the entire post-rock genre in earnest.

While not as purely instrumental as some of the other records on this list, Spiderland solidified the dark, pensive moodiness that became a standard of the genre. It crystalized the dynamic builds and ever-shifting cinematic landscapes that have become a staple of post-rock. Spiderland is flat-out one of the most influential albums in all of rock music. These guys may not be The Beatles, but in the space of 40 minutes they crafted a world so dense and lived-in that we still have groups exploring its corners nearly three decades later. 

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There you have it folks,  the single best crash course for a genre I could ever create. If you’re listening to these albums and find yourself hungry for more, I wholeheartedly recommend exploring each of these artist’s discographies because they’re all rich and rewarding in their own way. Beyond that, there are numerous other legendary post-rock bands I didn’t even get into here like Caspian, God Is An Astronaut, Mono, and more. If you’d like, all nine of the albums on this list have been placed into a playlist here for easy consumption. Thank you for reading along about this genre that has meant so much to me over the last decade. I can only hope that you’ll find as much solace and beauty in these albums as I have over the years.

The 2019 Diamond Platters: Swim Into The Sound’s Ancillary End of the Year Awards

Between end of the year awards that start in November and (this year) decade retrospectives that started coming out as early as October, I’m sure you’re as tired of listicle countdowns as I am. That’s why I created The Diamond Platters; the extravagant, opulent, and hyper-exclusive end of the year list designed for people who are sick and tired of end of the year lists.

The Diamond Platters are designed around categories that you won’t see on your average clickbait music review site. You’ll find no “album of the year,” and no high-minded retrospective attempting to weave these songs into some forced narrative of what this year “represented.” No, these are awards designed to highlight music, people, and events that made this year feel special. What follows may not fit into a website’s typical “Best of 2019” list, but still felt important and worth celebrating nonetheless. 

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Best Cover Song

Winner: Skatune Network - Everything
For the last three years, Jeremy Hunter (aka Skatune Network) has been creating some of the best and most consistent covers on the internet. They’re niche in the sense that every cover is ska, but for me, that merely adds an additional layer of charm. The fact that Hunter plays every instrument makes each video a feat of musicality that’s nothing short of wondrous to behold. Whether it’s Billie Eilish, Blink 182, Pokemon, or half of the Counter Intuitive Records roster, Hunter has a knack for making anything and everything sound wonderful and skank-able.

Runner-up: Denzel Curry “Bulls On Parade”
The magic of a cover song is taking something that belongs to someone else and making it feel wholly your own. Rage Against The Machine had a distinct (and hard to copy) sound, but for his cover of “Bulls On Parade,” Denzel Curry took that famous RATM energy and infused it with his own, resulting in a one-of-a-kind performance primed to become a staple of your gym playlist.

Best Album Art of the Year

Winner: Flume - Hi This Is Flume
Album art used to have one job: catch your eye on the shelf of a record store with the hopes of leading to a purchase. Its secondary job was to give potential listeners a visual representation of what the music directly behind it sounded like. Now that every song is one click away, artists have far more flexibility to make album art that fulfills that second bullet point, and this year no one did it better than Flume. The cover to his surprise-released mixtape is not only eye-catching, but it also does a fantastic job of encapsulating the vibrant, violent, and often-clashing elements of his particular version of electronic bombast. Additionally, the way the car was featured in music videos and Spotify visualizers only lent further depth and accuracy to the album cover.

Runner-up: Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won’t Hold
Lineup turmoil and a few mediocre songs aside, the cover to Sleater Kinney’s ninth studio album is a beautiful black-and-white optical illusion, collaging together every member’s face into a mishmash of lips, bangs, and winged eyeliner. It’s an arresting image that also manages to tackle the album’s central theme of being a middle-aged woman in music.

Best Music Video

Winner: FKA Twigs “Cellophane”
When the video for FKA Twigs’ “Cellophane” dropped, you could distinctly feel waves of ‘what the fuck’ reverberating throughout the internet. First off, it’s quite ballsy to release the closing track for your upcoming album nearly six months before its release, but as this video proves, FKA Twigs is a mastermind operating on a level higher than us mere mortals are capable of understanding. Aside from the notable way in which this track rolled out, the video itself is a beautiful and breathtaking meditation split into two main acts. “Cellophane” opens with FKA Twigs embracing her newest passion, pole dancing, in a routine that’s equal parts beautiful and athletic. From there, the video flies into a CGI-fueled acid trip as Twigs ascends into the sky, comes face to face with a robotic version of herself, then comes crashing back to earth in a coat of blood-red paint. This video is unlike anything I’ve ever seen this year, and all we can do is take it in and thank FKA Twigs for being herself. 

Runner-up: The Menzingers “America (You’re Freaking Me Out)”
Much like their music, the lead single off Menzingers’ Hello Exile is at once comedic, self-deprecating, socially-conscious, and pissed-off. Plus, the fact that the music video was filmed in Portland (a fact that I up on based off a strip club in one shot) means that it’s near and dear to my heart. 

Best Album From 2018 That I Missed

Winner: Charmer - Charmer
While I technically listened to Charmer’s self-titled album two times in December of 2018, within the space of a year, Charmer has climbed the charts to become my second most-listened-to album of all time on last.fm. I spent the better part of 2019 listening to the album at least once a day, usually on my way to work, and it single-handedly made my mornings bearable. I’ve seen the group live three times, including a front-to-back playthrough of this very album, and I was there singing along with every word. I can’t quite explain why this record resonates with me so hard, but I imagine it’s a little bit of everything. There’s impeccable emo guitarwork, powerful drumming, and choruses that get stuck in your head faster than you even realize. All of this swirled together into an album that I simply can’t get enough of. I may have arrived at Charmer late, but now I’m glad it’s become a part of my life. 

Runner-up: Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly - Alpha, Omega, Murphy
Much like Origami Angel, Guitar Fight From Fooly Cooly takes fast-tapping emo and infuse it with nerdom, pop-culture references, and a hearty helping of sincerity. Clocking in at a mere 17 minutes, Alpha, Omega, Murphy is a packed little EP that merely represents the first step of a band riffing their way onto a larger stage as promising up-and-coming members of the 5th wave of emo.

Best Soundtrack of the Year

Winner: Labrinth - Euphoria (Original Score from the HBO Series)
Not only was Euphoria one of the best shows on TV this year, but it also addressed addiction, anxiety, and sexuality with more honesty than anything else on the air. One of the best unsung parts of Euphoria is Labrinth’s excellent Drake-produced score. Whether it was soundtracking a neon-lit high school party or a ten-minute conflict set at the state fair, Labrinth always seemed to know what the mood called for. The result was a soundtrack that perfectly mirrored the emotions poured out on-screen. On top of that, the album is eclectic, containing a range of genres from bumping hip-hop, soaring orchestras, and even some radio-ready pop hits. There’s a little bit of everything in the Euphoria score, and that only ended up elevating what was already one of the best shows of 2019.

Runner-up: Bobby Krlic - Midsommar (Original Score)
Much like Hereditary before it, the soundtrack to Ari Aster’s second feature-length film helps magnify the horror and accentuate the skin-crawling twists. As great at the movie is, it wouldn’t have been half as unsettling without Bobby Krlic’s excellent score lurking menacingly beneath every moment. 

Best Promo

Winner: Prince Daddy & The Hyena “Love Of My Life: Chasing Gold”
Advertising is hard. For bands, it’s a necessary evil to promote their new music. For brands, it’s their bread and butter. Usually any sort of corporate-fueled musical crossover is cheesy as hell, but when Taco Bell asked Prince Daddy & The Hyena to cover a song from their recent biopic-skewering campaign the group jumped at the opportunity (because what emo band doesn’t like Taco Bell?) The result was definitively awesome, true to the band’s style, and hopefully got them a few free Crunchwrap Supremes out of the deal. Really, it’s a win for both parties, with the end result being advertising done right. 

Runner-up: Punk Goes website redesign
The Punk Goes series has always been a stronghold of nostalgia. Sometimes it’s nostalgia for the songs being covered, and sometimes it’s nostalgia for the bands from the listener’s childhood who have resorted to covering an outdated pop song. This year, Punk Goes decided to lean into this aesthetic, completely redesigning their homepage to resemble peak-era MySpace (friends list and all) to promote their third iteration of Punk Goes Acoustic.

Most stank-face inducing song of the year

Winner: Rico Nasty & Kenny Beats “Cold”
The opening track to Rico Nasty’s aptly-named Anger Management is a blistering two-and-a-half-minute takedown of haters and dickriders alike. Backed by a disgustingly-hard Kenny Beats instrumental, the song hits like a ton of bricks. Pair that beat with Rico Nasty’s fast-paced in-your-face rapping, throw in a few screamed ad-libs for good measure, and you got yourself a 100% USDA Certified banger.

Runner-up: Danny Brown “Savage Nomad”
My face every time I hear the opening lines to this song.

What the fuck is this outro????

Winner: 100 gecs “745 Sticky”
I entered 100 gecs’ debut album an innocent man. What I heard when I clicked play on “745 Sticky” was a whir of electronics followed by a barrage of autotuned Lil Aaron-esque raps and Brockhampton-like croons. The chorus hit hard, and the instrumental shook my fragile bluetooth speakers, but the pièce de résistance came at the end where a spike of 8-bit distortion makes way for a hyped-up group chant set to a bubblegum pop beat followed by a dubstep drop punctuated by screams, dog barks, screeching tires, and other stock sound effects. By the time the first song ended I was breathless, shaken, and my speaker had literally rattled off the table that it was sitting on. I felt both confused and seen. Like someone took my Spotify account, highschool music library, and favorite Instagram meme account, then blended them together in GarageBand. Suddenly everything made sense. 

Runner-up: Charli XCX “Click”
Someone on the /r/popheads subreddit said it best: “Had to turn down the volume during Click's outro due to feeling like my eardrums were about to blow up and lose a significant portion of my hearing. 10/10”

Hardest Working Person In DIY

Winner: Lex Atchison of Chatterbot Records
There’s something innately admirable about the DIY hustle. Maybe it’s the fact that no one makes money doing this, and there’s very little clout to be had. That means almost everyone involved in the scene is doing this from a place of love. That means they’re spending all this time and energy for the sole purpose of sharing art they love with the world. In 2019, no one did that better than Lex from Chatterbot Records. This year Lex helped artists release dozens of albums, EPs, and singles. She directed and edited music videos, joined bands on tour, produced dozens of merch items, and launched an ARG album announcement. If that sounds like a fulltime job you’re right. Sometimes DIY takes precedence over a sound sleep schedule.

Runner-up: Alex Martin of Short Fictions, Soft Toss, and You've Got a Friend in Pennsylvania Booking
After helming one of the most slept-upon emo projects of last year, Pittsburg-based Alex Martin showed no signs of slowing down in 2019. This year they booked more than 45 tours for dozens of bands through You've Got a Friend in Pennsylvania Booking, and anyone that’s even so much as touched a tour Google Sheet knows what an undertaking it is. Aside from insane amounts of booking this year, Martin also formed a new band called Soft Toss, and just this month released an absolute heater of an emo album with Short Fictions. The fact that Martin did all of this alongside school and a “real” job seems borderline-impossible to me, but the more I think about it, the odds that they have access to some sort of time travel seems increasingly likely to me. 

2019 Time Capsule

Winner - Lil Nas X “Old Town Road - Remix” Video
The animated music video for the third remix of “Old Town Road” almost has almost too much 2019 in it. Aside from being the biggest song of the year, this video contains Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, The Yodeling Kid, Thanos, Area 51, and Keanu Reeves Naruto running all in under three minutes. This video represents everything 2019 was about, and I love it

Runner-up: SZA, The Weeknd, Travis Scott “Power Is Power”
Unlike the wholesome goofiness contained in the “Old Town Road” music video, “Power is Power” is emblematic of 2019 for all the wrong reasons. Here we have a shallow music video, soulless verses, and lifeless instrumental that ends up feeling like a blatant cash grab in an attempt to pick a Black Panther-esque hit off the bones of a dying TV show. Yuck.

Too Iconic For This World: Most Breathtaking IG Feed

Winner: Sim Morales of Insignificant Other
Some people simply light up your timeline and provide you with an ever-renewing sense of warm fuzzies with each post. Sim Morales of Insignificant Other is one of those people. Aside from putting out one of the best power-pop records of the year, Sim’s Instagram feed is filled to the brim with killer looks and unforgettable fits. They are a DIY Fashion icon, plain and simple.

Runner-up: Aubree Roe of The Weak Days, Get Tuff, Safe Face, and Jetty Bones
Much like Sim, Aubree Roe (better known as RB) is a constant source of glammy makeup pics that make me feel simultaneously impressed and like one of those memes where people are surrounded by heart emojis.

Most Unexpected Celebrity Appearance

Winner: Strange Magic x Gilbert Gottfried
I don’t know what Mr. Gottfried’s going rate is, but the decision to include him throughout Strange Magic’s blistering 14-minute punk album was nothing short of a masterstroke. First introducing the listener to the record, then quickly moving on to heckling the group as the tracks wear on, Gilbert Gottfried’s presence only elevates an already-fantastic release. 

Runner-up: Mr. Moseby x Surely Temple
When you’re a band, getting people to listen to your album is hard. When you’re Mr. Moseby from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and The Suite Life on Deck, getting people to listen to your album is easy. Truly a genius marketing play by Surely Temple. Plus, it helps that their EP is pretty great (seriously, “enough.” is one of the most slept-on emo songs of the year). 

I Hope Someone Fights Me Right Now

Winner: Kublai Khan TX
I’m generally a pretty happy dude, but sometimes you just need to blow off some steam, and Kublai Khan TX has the riffs, lyrics, and attitude to soundtrack your next fight. Shit hits like a steamroller.

Runner-up: Gulch
I feel like this video explains the energy of Gulch pretty well.

Don’t @ Me: Best Social Media Presence

Winner: Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man
If you follow pop-punk twitter at all, then the phrase “Good morning everyone it’s Eric from Heart Attack Man” is probably all-too-familiar. From daily morning selfies with his coffee and Tik-Tok-ready memes to racking up a nearly $100K bid for a beanie on eBay, Eric has proven adept at garnering attention for both himself and his music through consistent and unrelenting shitposting. While most of it is positive (who doesn’t daily coffee-clad selfies from their favorite frontman?), a recent light-hearted beef with Hot Mulligan over the band’s un-verified twitter status brought even more eyes to the group, further solidifying them as the meme-generating centrifuge of pop-punk twitter.

Runner-up: Chris Farren of Chris Farren
Turning yourself into a meme is a risky gambit. However, turning yourself into a promotional tool for your music seems to have worked for Polyvinyl’s Chris Farren. In between writing his own music, designing his own merch, and putting on his own one-man live shows, Farren has been a consistent bright spot on my social media timeline throughout the year.

Best Single of the Year

Winner: Stars Hollow “Tadpole”
Some bands only put out one song this year, and Stars Hollow might have put out the best. As they shitposted on twitter earlier in the year: “Broke: Stars Hollow only released a single this year. Woke: Stars Hollow released a one song album this year.” They may be joking, but “Tadpole” genuinely comes off as a fully-realized entity that stands on its own more than some full-length albums I’ve listened to this year. Almost a postscript to their 2018 EP Happy Again, “Tadpole” is a continuation of the band’s fresh take on midwest emo. In the band’s own words, “It’s about how I want to be young forever and how I’m anxious that people want me to grow up.” It’s tappy, it’s screamy, it’s really fucking good. 

Runner-up: American Spirits “Retrograde”
This year Bowling Green mainstays American Spirits broke up, played a packed farewell show, and put out two of the best songs of their career. “Retrograde” is merely one half of the one-two-punch along with the cleverly-named “Error 404: Band Not Found.” While these may have been the band’s last songs, there’s also something to be said for going out on top. Plus, the newly-formed Soft Toss and half kidding share many of the same members, so hopefully this won’t be the last we’ve heard from these boys.

Most Goosebump-inducing Moment of the Year

Winner: Bring Me The Horizon “Ludens”
Bring Me The Horizon have transitioned from deathcore to metalcore to metal to rock so gradually I almost wouldn’t have noticed… if it weren’t for fans constantly complaining about it. While I don’t mind the musical pivot, it’s always fun when the band dips back into their hardcore roots whether it’s concert medleys or screams ironically directed at those fan criticisms. Needless to say, when I heard the tight-as-shit breakdown on the Death Stranding one-off “Ludens,” I lost my mind. More specifically, I got full-body goosebumps and my eyes began to water. It’s a flash of old school BMTH that made me feel like I was right back in high school again, even if it was just for 45 seconds. 

Runner-up: Summerbruise “Fricked”
“Well I only get this way after a rough day or if I’m drunk… Well, every day is rough and I’m always DRUUUUUUUUUNK.”

Most Unorthodox (But Noteworthy) Album Rollout

Winner: Bon Iver - i,i
Justin Vernon is an enigma. He puts out albums when he feels like it, and this year’s i,i was no different. Preceded by a bizarre trailer, the album released in-full almost a month before it’s announced date, but that’s not even the weird part. Vernon & Co. decided to upload the album to streaming services one song at a time. Releasing one song each hour, it gave the album drop a notably more communal feel. Instead of rushing through the first listen, Bon Iver gave fans something new to talk about each hour before finally piecing the record together as a whole. 

Runner-up: Lucy Dacus - 2019
Coming off releasing one of the best albums of 2018, Lucy Dacus kept busy this year by putting out a song every month or two. First it was a Spanish cover song, then a song for mother’s day, and finally culminating with a Christmas song, and capped off with an absolutely fantastic original track. Then she was kind enough to wrap up all these singles in a nice little EP for fans. Once again, it’s interesting to see an artist eschewing a traditional “album drop” and opting for one-off loosies every now and then. The difference here is that these weren’t just singles because, in the end, they were all collected in one place for easy listening. This kept Lucy Dacus top of mind throughout the year, and I probably ended up revisiting Historian even more because of it. 

Best Concert Video

industry folk: “what’s a band we should check out”

me: “@macsealband”

industry folk: “nah i doubt they can sell any tickets”

macseal: pic.twitter.com/DJrFxiR2ni

— Counter Intuitive🚀🖼 (@CIRecs) June 23, 2019

Winner: Macseal performing “Next To You” live at East Coast Customs
Live music is inherently hard to translate to any other medium. Sure, you can snap a picture or take a video of a band, but rarely do those snippets capture the energy felt in the room as the songs were unfolding live… Yet this video of Macseal is some of the most contagious energy I’ve seen all year. 

Runner-up: Dogleg performing “Calling Collect” live at Fauxchella III
As I mentioned in my profile on them earlier this year, this video was taken during the performance that single-handedly turned me into a Dogleg fan. It was aggressive, thrashy, and lead guitarist Alex Stoitsiadis capped it all off with a goddamn handstand. After making the rounds on DIY twitter, this video has since been a centerpiece in the band’s Pitchfork Best New Track, hopefully converting thousands more to Dogleg fans. 

Best Headline of the year

Winner: Alex G clarifies he is not Beto O'Rourke, did not piss himself.
Midway through the summer at the preliminary height of the democratic debates, some right-wing nutjob posted a picture of who they thought was Texas senator Beto O’Rourke pissing himself (because I guess that’s the best they can do to bring down Democratic candidates). It turns out the blurry photo was not Beto O'Rourke, in fact, it happened to be indie-folk musician (Sandy) Alex G, who had just released his brilliant album House of Sugar not even one week prior. In a bizarre turn of events that only 2019 can string together, all of this came to light within the space of 24 hours and became the talk of indie water coolers the nation over. What a goofy timeline. 

Runner-up: Celine Dion begs Drake NOT to get a tattoo of her face. Offers to go out with him, do a song together, and hang out with his mother in order to avoid him getting a tattoo of her face.
This headline is runner-up only because this was paraphrased via the /r/hiphopheads subreddit, but still worth mentioning here because it’s an emotional rollercoaster of a sentence.

Porch Beer Album of the Year

Winner: The Berries - Berryland
To be a “Porch Beer” album, you need a few things. Number one: jangly guitars. Number two: a laid-back rhythm section. Number three: a relaxed vocal delivery that pairs perfectly with a warm summer night and a cold beer. All of these elements are found on Berryland in spades. It’s simply a pleasant record; laid-back indie with a twinge of country that makes for a perfect listen on warm summer’s night.

Runner-up: (Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar
More fitting for the time of the night when you stand up six PBRs deep and the porch starts spinning, Alex G’s House of Sugar is a jaunty indie record that’s occasionally glitchy, jazzy, wandering, and wonderous.

Best Sample of the Year

Winner: Knocked Loose “In The Walls”
The Kojima-helmed PT may have died in development hell, but luckily “In The Walls” makes use of one of the game’s eerie world-building radio broadcasts so that we may never forget. 

Runner-up: 2 Chainz “I Said Me”
I guess this is a good a place as any to admit that The Sound of Music is my favorite movie of all time. Needless to say, when I heard 2 Chainz's “I Said Me” sampling Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things,” I geeked out more than I probably should have while listening to hip-hop about drug dealing and drive-bys. 

Greatest Addition to the Christmas Canon

Winner: Taylor Swift “Christmas Tree Farm”
While she had already made a fabulous contribution to the Christmas Cannon back in 2008, a lot has happened to Taylor Swift in the past eleven years. “Christmas Tree Farm” is a nostalgic original Christmas song that shines with the polish and primp of a 2019 Taylor Swift coming off her sugary-sweet Lover. It swells with a mix of orchestral flourishes, sleigh bells, and harmonized background vocals as Swift waxes poetic about the ideal holiday season that lives in her heart. It’s lovely, cinnamony, and smile-inducing, just like the holidays. 

Runner-up: Phoebe Bridgers “7 O’Clock News / Silent Night”
Now three years deep, it’s officially safe to call Phoebe Bridgers’ Christmas songs a tradition. Following up 2017’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and 2018’s “Christmas Song,” this newest addition to the dour Bridgers Christmas catalog finds her assembling a Mount Rushmore of indie. Enlisting Fiona Apple and The National’s Matt Berninger, the three craft an updated cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “7 O’Clock News / Silent Night,” which Bridgers dedicated to “everyone whose family has been literally or figuratively torn apart by Donald Trump. And to my racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, hypocritical family members, fuck you.” 

Reissue of the Year

Winner: The Beatles - Abbey Road (Super Deluxe Edition)
Abbey Road is my all-time favorite Beatles album, and that makes this year’s reissue even more exciting. Featuring a full-album remix and over 20 tracks of demos and alternate takes, the Super Deluxe Edition of Abbey Road only gives me more reasons to return to one of the greatest classic rock albums of all time. 

Runner-up: The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed (Deluxe)
This year I discovered that my favorite Beatles album (Abbey Road) and my favorite Rolling Stones album (Let It Bleed) both came out in the same year. Mind-blowing timelines aside, that means that two of my favorite albums both got 50th-anniversary reissues this year. While the deluxe edition of Let It Bleed came with fewer bonus goodies than Abbey Road, hearing my favorite Stones album remastered was a beautiful experience to behold. 

Most Slept-upon Release of the Year

Winner: Virginity - With Time
I’ll admit I first checked out Virginity only because of their name, but With Time is so great that they don’t even need a gimmick. Clocking in at a whirlwind 25 minutes, With Time is a punchy, clever, and self-deprecating bout of pop-punky emo most reminiscent of Jeff Rosenstock. I don’t care how many streams the album has on Spotify or how many followers the band has on twitter, whatever it is, it’s not enough.

Winner-up: He Was An Artist, She Was A Carpenter - I'll Never Be As Happy As I Was Last Summer
Self-branded as “zoomer emo,” He Was An Artist, She Was A Carpenter is a band that just happens to tick all of my hyper-specific boxes. Clever song titles? Check. Obscure pop-culture samples? Check. Catchy, twinkly, and nostalgic emo? Triple-check. I'll Never Be As Happy As I Was Last Summer is already a fantastic emo album, but it also happens to be the single most promising release I’ve heard all year. Now’s the time to get up on this band before they’re the next big thing in DIY.

That’s Why You Don’t Publish an Album of the Year List in November

Winner: Georgia Maq - Pleaser
Single-handedly proving why it’s a fool’s errand to publish a (supposedly comprehensive) list of the best albums in November, Georgia Maq surprise-dropped her synth-pop debut on Run For Cover this December. Famous for Camp Cope, where she defiantly fronts one of the best pop-emo groups in the southern hemisphere, Pleaser sees Maq swapping her guitar for a synth and shedding her anger to don the persona of a pop artist who’s fallen deeply in love. Still bearing her trademarked Melbourne-accented croon, Pleaser is unexpected not only in that it’s a surprise release but also in that it’s one of the best-constructed pop albums of the year. Should be an easy contender for many last-minute album of the year lists. 

Runner-up: Short Fictions - Fates Worse Than Death
This December also saw the release of one of the best emo albums, Short Fictions’ sophomore record Fates Worse Than Death. Bearing horns, impassioned vocals, and tight choruses, there’s a good reason why Fates has been making the rounds on emo twitter, even this late in the year. 

Best Interpolation

Winner: We Came As Romans “From The First Note” 
We Came As Romans was one of my first real concerts. I use “real” in the sense that it was the first concert I went to with people who were my age and not just my parents. To this day, I distinctly remember We Came As Romans taking the stage and playing the first song “To Plant A Seed.” Midway through the song I’d fought my way through the crowd, braved the moshpit, and made my way to the first few rows of fans before the end of the song. The track concludes with a powerful group chant that found the entire band lining up at the front of the stage harmonizing with the crowd. There’s a snapshot in my mind of that exact moment, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Kyle Pavone’s passing in 2018 was a loss for both the band and the genre, but I think that he would be happy knowing that memory will live on forever in me. And now, thanks to “From The First Note,” that feeling has been bottled up for the rest of time. In this song, the group sampled their own song ten years later in memory of their fallen frontman, and it’s absolutely chilling. “From The First Note” is simultaneously catharsis for the band and a reward for longtime fans. Nothing will ever replace the loss that Kyle’s friends and family felt in August of 2018, but this song will forever act as a beautiful memorial. 

Runner-up: Summerbruise “Bury Me At Penn Station” 
Imagine this; you’re already 12 minutes into a fantastic emo EP, vibing out to the last song when suddenly the unmistakable words of Drake Bell’s “I Found a Way” shoot through the front of your speakers. No, this isn’t a dream, you’re just listening to Summerburise, and it’s beautiful. 

Live Album of the Year

Winner: Vulfpeck - Live in Madison Square Garden
Simply life-affirming. 

Runner-up: IDLES - A Beautiful Thing: IDLES Live at Le Bataclan
Gripping, dynamic, and explosive. Exactly what live music should be.

Nastiest Bass

Winner: Russian Circles - “Arluck”
With a bassline that can only be described as “evil,” Russian Circles came out strong in the first half of the year when they released “Arluck” as the lead single to Blood Year. Much like the band’s previous work “309,” “Arluck” features a demonic bassline that thumps through your speakers, rattles the fillings out of your head, and makes you want to set everything around you on fire. 

Runner-up: Varials “Romance”
In what’s essentially a two-minute interlude from a brutal onslaught of metalcore, Varials gave their audience a breather with this Nine-Inch-Nails-interpolating track that allows for some of the most chunky and destructive bass lines of the entire record. 

Biggest Come Up

Winner: Lil Nas X
I think it’s safe to say that no one in the entire world had a better 2019 than Lil Nas X. If his story is to be believed, this time last year he was living on his sister’s couch with less than zero dollars to his name. He bought a $30 beat online and then posted it on Tik-Tok until it became a meme. From there, the story of “Old Town Road” is mostly public knowledge. The song transformed from meme into social cause when Billboard said the song did not “merit inclusion” on the Country charts only for Billy Ray Cyrus to come to the song’s rescue, giving Nas the assist (and legitimacy) to push forward to the top of the charts. Now “Old Town Road” has become the longest-charting song of all time, spending a grand total of 19 weeks at #1. Lil Nas X came out as gay at the height of the song’s popularity and has gone on to chart with songs like “Panini” and “Rodeo.” Now the world waits to see what the 20-year-old wunderkind will do after making the single most defining song of the year. 

Runner-up: Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish was a known entity long before 2019; however, this year marked the release of her debut album, her first #1 song, and countless sold-out shows on a year-long worldwide tour. Not only that, Billie managed to release a legitimately-great album that crossed boundaries and proved pop music doesn’t need to be traditional, sexy, or “normal” to be commercially successful. She’s the face of a new generation, and this year solidified it. 

Cozy Album of the Year

Winner: Great Expectations - Figures of Speech
Sometimes an album just feels cozy. As if it’s made for the express purpose of staying in, wrapping yourself in a blanket, and sipping on a hot cup of tea as you listen to it. Great Expectations' Figures of Speech is one of those albums. Filled with lush folky instrumentation, subdued Owen-esque arrangements, and softly-whispered vocals, it feels like the musical equivalent of sitting by a warm fireplace and looking out the window as the snow comes down in blankets outside.

Runner-up: Jack M. Senff - Good To Know You
I guess Michigan bands just know how to make cozy albums because ex-emo frontman Jack M. Senff’s debut solo album is a wholesome and comforting record seemingly designed for easy-morning Sunday listening.

Best Remaster

Winner: Dance Gavin Dance - Acceptance Speech 2.0
Post-hardcore mainstays Dance Gavin Dance have spent a better part of this year releasing instrumentals versions of their entire catalog. That instrumental avalanche (alongside one-off singles, acoustic tracks, and side projects) has kept fans more than satisfied. Not only that, but this year the group also revisited their 2014 album, and my personal favorite, Acceptance Speech for a “2.0 version” that makes the mix less muddy, the instrumentals more full, and the vocals even sharper. Acceptance Speech 2.0 gives fans a welcome reason to revisit the humble beginnings of the band’s current era.

Runner-up: August Burns Red - Constellations (Remixed)
Following up last year’s remaster of their best album, August Burns Red continued forward, touching up 2009’s excellent Constellations to sound much more clean and modern. 

Best Song Title

Winner: closure. “Alien vs. Predator vs. Brown vs. the Board of Education”
Filed under both “songs names I wish I’d come up with” and “joke that would have popped off on twitter,” the discography of closure. tends to lean into ridiculous over-the-top song titles, but “Alien vs. Predator vs. Brown vs. the Board of Education” takes the cake.

Runner-up: Proper. “A$AP Rocky Type Beat”
In a brilliant and culturally-aware meme-worthy move, Proper. turned a search term into a song title. Not only that, this song title fits into the group’s ethos calling into question the space between “emo-ness” and blackness. I can only hope that this song got the band got some runoff streams from confused hip-hop fans.

Split of the Year

Winner: Portrayal of Guilt / Soft Kill
There’s an art to a split. Bands have to find another group that they get along with well enough to coordinate an entire release (even if it’s less substantial than a full-length). Generally speaking, your music would line up stylistically, but that’s not the case with Portrayal of Guilt and Soft Kill’s split from this summer. Instead, we have a brutally-fast deathcore track followed by a synthy 80’s throwback jam making for one of the weirdest, most whiplash-inducing one-two punches of the year.

Runner-up: Niiice / Gully Boys
Here we see two massively-underrated Minnesota artists team up to help the world realize that they should be overlooked no longer. From the emo horns and dreamlike breakdown of Niiice’s “Caffeine” to the post-punky goodness of Gully Boys’ “Little Brother,” this split offers an excellent entry point into both of these band’s already-fantastic catalogs. 

Song of the Year

Winner: The National “Light Years”
I can only describe “Light Years” as achingly beautiful. Written at the same time as “Carin at the Liquor Store” off of 2017’s Sleep Well Beast (probably my favorite song of that year), “Light Years” is a song that adapts itself to whatever emotion you bring into it. Grief? Longing? Heartbreak? “Light Years” is malleable and applies to each and every one of them. Centered around a heavenly piano line and Matt Berninger’s remorseful delivery, the song hits like a ton of bricks and captures raw emotion in a way that very few songs seem to. 

Within the space of three and a half minutes, the song builds from those two core components and slowly starts building a near-imperceptible emotional weight. Gradually new elements begin to emerge as the song wears on. A background singer joins in for the first chorus. A subtle string section accentuates the song’s second verse. By the song’s second chorus, kaleidoscopic swirls of ambient noise in the background subsume the listener, lifting them up into the air. The track ends with a meditative instrumental outro where the piano, strings, and hushed vocalizations give you the sensation of floating off into space as you sink deeper and deeper into your emotional state. It’s nothing short of masterful. 

Runner-up: Slaughter Beach, Dog “Anything”
Closing tracks are hard, but Slaughter Beach, Dog seems to have a knack for them. Whether it’s the breathless one-two punch of their debut album, the wholesome love found on 2017’s Birdie, or the raw humanity seen on the band’s newest record. 

“Anything” takes an entire lifetime and compresses it down into a four-minute song. Jake Ewald jostles the timeline around like a Tarantino movie and then presents this journey to us as a wondrous and awe-inspiring tale. The song begins capturing minor frustrations like car troubles and running out of smokes, then moves on to more substantial looming discomforts like drifting away from friends and loved ones as Ewald flashes forward from ages five, ten, nineteen, and eighty-four. After a short instrumental interlude, the vocals return as Ewald pleads with the listener to swim out to him, finally ending with a message that beams with hope and optimism “Anything you want to know, you can find out / Any place you want to see / I can promise I will be a friend to you / If you will be a friend to me.”

Most Anticipated Release of 2020

Winner: Charmer - LP2
There’s a lot to be excited about in 2020. Long-awaited follow-up albums from indie darlings like Phoebe Bridgers and Japanese Breakfast. Debut albums from promising up-and-comers like Beach Bunny, and Dogleg. Big moves from personal faves like Retirement Party and Just Friends, and The Wonder Years. And of course, big-name releases from people like Fleet Foxes and Tame Impala.  Yet with all of that new music coming at us within the next calendar year, the album I’m most excited to hear is Charmer’s sophomore effort. As mentioned above, within the space of one year, the band’s debut became my second-most played album of the last ten years, so it’s safe to say I’m a fan. I’m both excited to see what the band comes up with next and anxious to see if it connects with me in the same way that Charmer did. Perhaps that collection of songs was just lightning in a bottle, but I’m holding out hope that the group’s new album will surpass it.

Runner-up: Stars Hollow - Debut Album
This year I had an unabashed love affair with Stars Hollow. I fell in love with the group’s 2018 EP, I saw the band live three times, and I even interviewed Tyler earlier this year because I had that many questions about his music. The group is comprised of some of the sweetest and most talented people I’ve ever met in the music scene, and I sincerely believe they will go far. As I (also) talked about above, if “Tadpole” is anything to go off of, the group has a long and fruitful future of goosebump-inducing emo that somehow has a direct line to my emotional core. The prospect of a full album from these guys already has me excited for the next year to start.