In 2019, memes ruled music. TikTok earworms, unlikely collabs, and saturated cyber-hits dominated the top of the charts, while the underground responded to ultra-pop the way it always does: with neo-traditionalism. Instead of adapting to its changing surroundings, trap stayed stagnant, and declined in general popularity–rather than increased–for the first time this decade. While up-and-comers offered mutated sub-genres, such as bubblegum bass and yeet music, stalwarts nestled further into their personal styles. Entering the 2020s, music is punchy, jagged, frantic, and a little numb–a clear reflection of life in 2019.
Here are the 50 best albums of 2019, according to me.
50. Solange - When I Get Home
49. Slowthai - Nothing Great About Britain
48. Dorian Electra - Flamboyant
47. Deb Never - House on Wheels
46. Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay
45. Clairo - Immunity
44. Zelooperz - Dyn-O-Mite
43. Burna Boy - African Giant
42. Gangstarr - One of the Best Yet
41. Roddy Ricch - Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial
40. Courtney Barnett - MTV Unplugged Live in Melbourne
39. American Pleasure Club - Fucking Bliss
38. 420 Unlovable - 420 Unlovable Vol. 2
37. 10bands tiffany - RIP LIL CAT (Texas Love, Texas Hate)
36. Action Bronson & The Alchemist - Lamb Over Rice
35. JPEGMAFIA - All My Heroes Are Cornballs
34. MIKE - Tears of Joy
33. Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿
32. Anna Wise - As if it Were Forever
31. Little Simz - Grey Area
30. Mustard - Perfect Ten
29. Lucki - Freewave 3
28. Lucki - Days b4 III
27. Toro Y Moi - Soul Trash
26. Cold Hart - Good Morning Cruel World
25. Maxo - Lil Big Man
24. Ecco2k - E
23. Adé Hakim - Happiest People In The World Wide Web
22. Wiki - Oofie
21. Greaf - River City Wizard
20. surrenderdorothy - justwhatthedoctorordered
19. Bones - IFeelLikeDirt
18. Daniel Caesar - Case Study 01
17. Lil Tracy - Anarchy
16. 10bands tiffany - Bramhall Pub
15. Germ - GERM HAS A DEATHWISH
14. Drain Gang - Trash Island
13. Deadmall - Bunny Rabbit
12. 100 gecs - 1000 gecs
11. Dijon - Sci Fi 1
10. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Bandana
Gritty street tales meet inimitable sampling wizardry. The long-awaited, often doubted sequel to Piñata, Bandana delivers on its promise of timeless, thorough, heartfelt gangsta rap. Madlib’s guidance and production prods at Freddie’s soft side, forcing him to examine any misguided platitudes that may dictate his life now, as well as in the past. `Lib massages Freddie into a 2Pac type character–an introspective gangster whose soft side reveals truths about his toughness. As the album goes on, the portrait of Freddie Gibbs becomes more colorful, more textured, more scarred, and more sincere.
9. Honeyfitz - I Don’t Need Tennis Lessons I Need a Therapist
There are four different types of summer albums: the one for the beach, the one for the party, the one for falling in love, and the one for breaking up. Honeyfitz–Western Massachusetts’ oddball sweetheart–found a way to tick all four boxes at once with Tennis Lessons, his debut album. On it, Honeyfitz confesses his deepest insecurities and innermost devotions, in present tense, as if he’s opening up to his lover in couple’s therapy, and we’re sitting in on the session. The darkest points–like “Wake Up,” the perfect song for crying in your car–make the brightest moments–like “Leaning In” and “Concrete”–extra impactful. Honeyfitz swoops up his listeners and takes them on a ride through the challenges and rewards of love and becoming an adult. Overall, Tennis Lessons is the most versatile, addictive, and cathartic indie-pop album of 2019.
8. Bladee - Icedancer
Mixtapes are meant to be sloppy. Ever since Gucci Mane’s first tape, rappers have been throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Most times, the best you can hope for is a few catchy hooks and a couple of good beats. With Icedancer, Swedish internet-rap’s cult favorite Bladee throws a whole lot of shit at the wall - and all of it stuck. Ripsquad’s executive production pulls from early 2000s ringtones and pop hits, and Bladee embraces his role as the unlikely frontman of these ensembles. He’s pouty, hard on himself, tender, lovable, and oh so based. Even when Bladee barely tries, he cannot help but succeed.
7. Your Old Droog - Transportation
The heart of hip hop lives in Transportation, the fourth full-length album from New York rapper Your Old Droog. With the storytelling (and voice, weirdly) of Nas, the poise of Dr. Dre, and the charm of MF DOOM, YOD provides a riveting ride through 15 transportation-related cuts. “Train Love”–the best storytelling song of the year–tells a story of Droog falling in love with a stranger he sees on the train, being too shy to talk to her, missing his opportunity, and taking the same train at the same time every day for ten years in hopes to see her again. He never runs into her again, and while he’s searching, he reflects about the whims of love and the color that desire brings to mundane life. To tell this story, Droog uses countless clever train-related double entendres. On “Monthly,” Droog details a fling he has under a peculiar, yet classically New York arrangement: he has sex with a woman he doesn’t really want to have sex with, in exchange for a monthly MTA pass. Through lyricism, originality, rawness, curiosity, style, and charisma, Your Old Droog delivers the best traditional hip hop album of 2019.
6. jonatan leandoer127 - Nectar
People say he can’t rap, people say he can’t sing, people say he’s out of touch, people say he’s stupid. Many of his fans are afraid to admit they like him. One would assume this hate hits hard for Jonatan Leandoer Hastad a.k.a. Yung Lean a.k.a. jonatan leandoer127, a vulnerable artist who puts his whole heart in everything he does. One would be wrong. As is proven on Nectar, his latest album, Leandoer couldn’t give a fuck what people think even if his life depended on it. Over nine tracks of art-rock, folk, brit-pop, and experimental instrumentation, jonatan leandoer127 flatly sings and orates bizarre, slam-poetry-inspired stories from an alternate universe, one he calls home. There’s nothing like Nectar and I haven’t been able to stop listening to it all year.
5. Future - Save Me
Save Me, Future’s only flawless album, features the tightest execution, rawest feelings, and catchiest ideas he’s ever laid on wax. Since this record dropped after a solid decade of trap trailblazing, that should really say something. Each of Save Me’s seven songs displays a different side of Future, each more fine-tuned, self-aware, and raw than ever before.
4. Slauson Malone - A Quiet Farwell, TWENTY SIXTEEN TO TWENTY EIGHTEEN
The most evocative and poetic embodiment of modern life at the edge of an environmental apocalypse. Slauson Malone pulls from nearly everything sonic that has happened until this point to assemble a tellingly numb album where the pain of the biggest loss imaginable, the death of the Earth, pounds just below the surface. A Quiet Farwell’s sloppiness bolsters its narrative, rather than detracts from it; Malone doesn’t go back to fix errors he made along the way (including the spelling of the album title) as if to say nothing matters anymore, we’re all doomed. Oof.
3. (Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar
Light, solid, loose, rich, smart, reckless. On his eighth full-length studio album, (Sandy) Alex G offers his most listenable project to date. He casually balances country twang and electronic pixelation over a backbone of rock ‘n’ roll topics and folksy charm. His guitar playing teeters between gritty and soaring, and this album’s detours always lead somewhere interesting. The sequencing on House of Sugar is almost too perfect. From the first second of the album to the last, the listener is snatched from their life into the world of House of Sugar, Alex G’s iteration of the folk tale “Hansel and Gretel.” If you shuffle the album, the inconceivable ease with which he strings together one-of-a-kind ideas stares you in the face. While this album’s primary feat is emotional, the display of technical virtuosity is jaw dropping. The degree of balance, catchiness, innovation, lyricism, creativity, and replay-ability make House of Sugar the best rock album of 2019.
2. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal - Suffer On
In 2011, Adam McIlwee, a then-member of pop-punk band Tigers Jaw, started a side project: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Over instrumentals from Greaf, Jayyeah, and Horse Head, McIlwee sang the somber lyrics he’d wail in Tigers Jaw, but over trap beats. Nothing like this had ever been done before. Since then, emo rap has risen and fallen, and Wicca Phase has taken various excursions along the way–some abrasive, some clean, some auto-tuned, and some acoustic. On Suffer On, Wicca Phase fuses the richest moments from each point in his career into a tight, groomed, cohesive, and dangerously replay-able album, a bookend of emo rap, and a masterwork of Wicca Phase Springs Eternal.
1. surrenderdorothy - julyrent
Everything to ever exist is made of combinations of a set amount of elements on the periodic table. It’s the foundation of everything we know and can imagine. julyrent feels as if it’s made from a new element, one that doesn’t exist anywhere else, and can never be reused. The world created from this element is one of utmost instability, but also smoothness. surrenderdorothy–a project of Greaf and Bones–has you right where they want you: unsure of what to believe but overcome by emotion.
As a subtle nod to longtime fans, they weave a hilarious and impossibly clever skit throughout the album, where (someone likely pretending to be) a landlord leaves Greaf voicemails threatening to reveal Greaf’s deliberately hidden identity if he doesn’t pay his rent. As the project progresses, the landlord waffles on his threat, and reveals he’s a big Greaf fan, so much that he can’t bring himself to actually evict his tenant. The landlord continues to offer extraneous solutions to the problem, mirroring things Greaf fans do and say, so that if the right self-aware fan listens extremely close, they’ll get it. In typical fashion, these jokes are so niche that once they click, they seem too witty to be intentional, and the listener has to question if they’re overthinking the music.
Not a second of julyrent is wasted and not a day goes by where I don’t listen to it. And when I’m not listening to it, I’m thinking about it, trying to understand the methods of the bizarre world they’ve created. I don’t think I’ll ever fully get it, but I know that in life, the hardest things to pin down allow for the most meaning and the most growth. Thank you, surrenderdorothy. Now back to the top. ◊
Bonus: The 10 Best Songs of 2019
1. Future - Xanax Damage
2. Gabe Gill - Beachtowel
3. Your Old Droog - Train Love
4. Bones & Eddy Baker - (BONUS) KeepItInTheFamily
5. (Sandy) Alex G - Gretel
6. surrenderdorothy - whydoyoustillcrossmymind
7. Bladee - Trash Star
8. Kim Petras & Lil Aaron - Anymore (Laura Les Remix)
9. jonatan leandoer127 - Wooden Girl
10. Dijon - Crybaby