1. Harry Styles - Fine Line
It's always a little funky to do my December wrap-up after my year-end lists, and I already wrote a little about this in my top 50 albums of 2019. But I will say, I think this is a big step up from Styles's first album and I'm really glad that he seems to be interested in being a singles artist and not just letting name recognition carry him into the diminishing returns of a cult appeal album artist. I was completely wrong about "Lights Up" being the breakout radio single, though I do still really enjoy the chorus's similarities to the Lil Wayne classic "Shine." What really surprised me about Fine Line, however, is not just that there are some hooky uptempo songs but that the folky acoustic songs like "To Be So Lonely" and "Cherry" anare better than the ones on the first album. Here's my 2019 albums playlist where you can find most of these.

2. Roddy Ricch - Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial
Roddy Ricch had excellent timing releasing his new album just as my #1 single of the year was peaking on the charts. It was interesting to see reactions unfold, because the initial buzz was kind of deflating, like everyone was disappointed that the album didn't contain a bunch of songs as immediate and anthemic as "Ballin'," but a few weeks later, it feels like he's really arrived and the album has caught on. Roddy Ricch definitely wears his influences on his sleeve -- there are so many different songs where he quotes a Future bar that it's hard not to hear more subtle homages to Future flows and melodies, but his voice and some of his melodic choices are distinct enough that it really hurts the record. And the choir at the end of the album on "War Baby" was a really unexpected and inspired choice.

3. The Who - WHO
When Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey released Endless Wire, I was fairly certain it'd be the last new record we'd ever get from one of the greatest bands of all time. 13 years later, there's another one after all, and for all I know they'll make another in 2032. I appreciate that WHO kicks off on a cantankerous note with "I don't care, I know you're gonna hate this song," less so that Townshend concludes that you won't like his tune because it or they are "not diverse," but there was bound to be an eye-rolling boomer moment or two here. For the most part I like the lighter stuff here, even though there's world class drummers and bassists all over the album, whenever late period The Who get into a rocking uptempo number it's impossible not to miss the unique energy Moon and Entwistle would've brought to it.

4. Infinity Knives - Dear, Sudan
Infinity Knives is a Baltimore-based artist who's hard to categorize, it's like sound collage art pop, really quiet and pretty for the opening stretch and then there are 3 tracks featuring Brian Ennals that veer into hip hop, really interesting and unpredictable record.

5. Elli$ & Stan Green - Be More Careful
I profiled Elli$ for Baltimore City Paper back in 2013 and I'm glad that he's still at it, making really thoughtful and carefully made trad east coast rap records, this time as a duo with another Baltimore artist, Stan Green, great laid back conversational feel to the whole album, "Oxygen" in particularly is really well written.

6. Matmos - at Chalkwell Park
Matmos released an excellent album, Plastic Anniversary, in early 2019, but just before the end of the year they put this up on their Bandcamp, basically the audio from an installation they did at a park in England in 2016. Given that they're probably the world's foremost experts in making music out of found sound, it's a kick to hear them take a commissioned assignment and see what they can do with objects in a park, although it was probably more fun to hear this stuff in the actual space where they made it. My favorite part is the samples from the peacock cage.

7. Free Nationals - Free Nationals
I'm not the biggest Anderson .Paak fan but I respect his musicianship and dig that he's got a talented backing band and that they've got an album of their own. This record is very much in the same hip retro funk wheelhouse as the Katranada album that also came out in December, they've only got one guest in common (Kali Uchis) but it feels like they drew from the same pool of talent, but I dig this album a little more than that one for the live band grooves.

8. Foo Fighters - 00979725 EP
Since July, Foo Fighters have been releasing a series of EPs to celebrate their 25th year as a band, 10 of them so far, all with similar artwork and a series of digits as the title (the last two digits are always '25' and the other digits indicate what year the recordings are from). They include live tracks, rarities, covers, previously released non-album songs, whatever, grouped chronologically, and naturally the more interesting ones cover the '90s. 00979725 kind of emphasizes the mellower side of the Colour and the Shape era -- a version of "Up In Arms" all in slower tempo of the first half, a stripped down "See You," the X-Files soundtrack version of "Walking After You" -- but for me the rediscovery of this collection was the b-side "Dear Lover" that I don't think I had heard in 20 years. It's also always fun to hear their cover of Killing Joke's "Requiem" since, y'know, one of Nirvana's famous songs is accused of ripping off Killing Joke.

9. Liam Payne - LP1
It's funny to think that at one point I noted that Louis and Liam had some of the best and most frequent songwriting credits on One Direction's albums and predicted that they'd have some of the most promising solo careers out of the whole group -- turns out they're the last ones to release albums (Louis's is out in late January) and are struggling to keep up commercially with the other 3. Liam had a big single, the cheesy club banger "Strip That Down" with Quavo, back in 2017, but hearing it on an album over 2 years later just seems kind of pathetic, because he's released so many songs since then that did nothing. Out of the 17 songs on here, some are pretty dopey, but once you get past the obviously bad ones, I was surprised how many good tracks there were, and the Zedd song is still a banger.

10. Fat Joe & Dre - Family Ties
Fat Joe was one of the many rappers covered in my recent Billboard piece about rappers who've flirted with retirement lately, and Joe is the one guy who's old and experienced enough that he might actually bow out for real. I will say, though, Joe has always made better albums than he gets credit for (Loyalty is a particular favorite) and I wish his farewell record was a solo project and not an ill-advised duo album with the rapping half of Cool & Dre, who I've always found really really irksome as a vocal presence. Still, his beats are good and the album is pretty solid, the 2-part "Heaven & Hell" in particular is great.

The Worst Album of the Month: Sunday Service Choir - Jesus Is Born
Jesus Is King was a mediocre Kanye West album in kind of familiar ways, but the live choir parts at least sounded good, so I was curious about the album by the choir that's been backing him for these weird 'Sunday Service' events. This album just sounds like crap, though, I mean I guess Kanye and the people in his circle don't do a lot of production that involves recording a group of singers and a band playing live together, but it sounds like they just threw a mic in the corner of the room and called it a day. And the Kidz Bopification of various R&B songs about sex just gets ridiculous after a while (Ginuwine's "So Anxious" becomes "Souls Anchored") and in a way this album's much worse than Jesus Is King because it's 3 times as long and at least twice as boring.

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