1. Little Big Town - Nightfall
Making a Little Big Town deep cuts playlist a couple months ago affirmed for me that they're one of my favorite country acts of the past decade, and that they had their harmony-driven sound really well figured on the early indie label albums the group co-produced, before they had some of Nashville's best producers and writers helping them make hits (I really recommend the recent Rolling Stone profile of the group). Nightfall is the first mostly self-produced Little Big Town album, and it captures their gorgeous harmonies and lovelorn ballads as well as any of their records with Jay Joyce, which is high praise from me, I particularly like "Next To You" and "Questions." Here's the 2020 albums Spotify playlist that I'll be putting pretty much every album I listen to in for the rest of the year.

2. Lil Wayne - Funeral
The album after the comeback album is a tricky one, and after Carter V was just good enough and just big enough to officially end Lil Wayne's wilderness period but not so good or so big that the public was clamoring for more, my hopes weren't too high for Funeral. But this is a good album, better than Carter V by a decent margin while still having most of the same strengths (once again, 2 Mannie Fresh productions that make me wish they'd do a whole album together again) and weaknesses (way too long, halfheartedly trying to serve way too many demographics and radio formats). Aside from the de rigueur "Dreams & Nightmares" knockoff intro and Adam Levine power ballad, it's really pretty impressively consistent. "Not Me" is far and away my favorite truck but I also enjoy that the only Migos feature is Takeoff, and that Lil Baby shows up as basically Lil Wayne's musical grandson who doesn't actually resemble him much at all.

3. Mac Miller - Circles
Few artists in popular music have earned nearly all of their respect in the time after they landed a #1 album, but Mac Miller worked his way into the hearts of his peers and discriminating rap fans in the 7 years between 2011's Blue Slide Park and his tragic death in 2018. Perennial white rapper skeptic that I am, I remember listening to Swimming before he died with my proverbial arms still folded a little, aware of his talent and his creative growth but not entirely won over, I'd see clips of him playing piano or guitar and be like see, I wanna hear more from that guy. A musician's death doesn't often change my perception of their work much, but I have to admit the vulnerability and sadness of Miller's later work sounds a lot more poignant to me now, particularly songs on here like the heartbreaking "Good News." Jon Brion produced and/or played on a lot of my favorite singer/songwriter records of the last 30 years as well as one of my favorite rap albums, Late Registration, so him being the guy who shepherded Circles to completion after Miller's death also does a lot to ingratiate the album to me, I didn't want to immediately do a 180 on Mac and suddenly become a fan of his whole catalog but I'm definitely ready to appreciate a lot more of it after this album.

4. K. Michelle - All Monsters Are Human
K. Michelle's always had a Memphis twang in her music and the occasional country song, which attracted more interest last year after "Old Town Road," and apparently she recorded an entire country album that Atlantic declined to put out. Now that she's off the label, All Monsters Are Human is her first independent album, and it's not the country record, but it definitely feels like she's relaxed and doing songs in any style she feels like doing, I particularly like "All The Lovers" and "Something New." "I Don't Like You" is classic K. Michelle, an angry and profane piano ballad like only she can do.

5. Moneybagg Yo - Time Served
It feels like the tide is still rising for Memphis rap right now, last week Yo Gotti and Key Glock dropped albums (as did K. Michelle) and earlier in the month my favorite of the new wave of Memphis guys, Moneybagg Yo, got his best first week numbers to date. I think it's kind of in the middle of the pack of his last few projects, but it's solid. "Protect Da Brand" has an amazing beat, "1 2 3" and "U Played" are hits, Moneybagg and Lil Baby is always a golden combination.

6. Secs - Doer
Rjyan "Cex" Kidwell has made so many records over the years that I've never been able to keep up with all of them, but I try to pop in and see what he's up to here and there, and a new one hit Bandcamp just the other day under his homonym alias Secs. It's a fairly short record with a really wide range of sounds packed into it, I particularly like the more bright, melodic, playful-sounding stuff like "4 Puny Periods" but there's some cool abrasive, borderline industrial-sounding beats too.

7. Halsey - Manic
I've always been a Halsey skeptic, but she's grown on me a little over the past year or two, she's both my wife's and my producer's favorite pop star of the moment, and the two (!) episodes of "Saturday Night Live" she did in the promo cycle for this album had some pretty impressive performances. Manic is still a little hit and miss for me, her voice still grates when she hits the stagey vocal affectations on "Clementine," but there are some great production here, I really dig "You Should Be Sad" and "I Hate Everybody."

8. Mick Jenkins - The Circus EP
I'm never sure how well regarded or well known Mick Jenkins is, feels like he doesn't get as much love as he should from the prestige rap crowd, or maybe his buzz has already peaked. But his shit is really consistently excellent, it's kinda nice to get a 7-song stopgap EP even if it feels like an appetizer for whatever full-length is in the pipeline, I particularly like "I'm Convinced."

9. Louis Tomlinson - Walls
The deck seemed stacked against Louis Tomlinson, the last member of One Direction to put out a solo album and the one with the weakest singles chart track record, even before the bad omen of an alpaca named after him being decapitated on Netflix on his album's release date. But Tomlinson is part of the faction of 1D that carries a torch for the group's jangly pop/rock side that I tend to root for, even if he's a bit more Britpop than Harry and Niall's solo stuff. This album was actually giving me heavy Oasis vibes even before I got to the title track and realized that it was written by Noel Gallagher. I kind of dig the lo-fi sound of the closing track "Only The Brave," I would've been fine with more tracks in that vein. The oldest single "Miss You" should've been included on the album, though, that was a good one.

10. Eminem - Music To Be Murdered By
After so many prolonged hiatuses and Eminem's general decline into self-parody, 3 albums in just over 2 years really seemed like overkill, but I have to admit, I think this one is pretty good, at least by the low standard of Revival and Kamikaze. The production is varied and playful, his delivery doesn't have that strained constipated tone too often, there's only one or two saccharine pop hooks and only one or two tastless punchlines about pop singers, and a pretty good posse cut with Q-Tip and Black Thought. I didn't think I wanted an Eminem/Young M.A collaboration but "Unaccomodating" is pretty good. It's not a great album or anything, but it's kind of in the neighborhood of what I'd come up with if I was executive producing an Eminem album.

The Worst Album of the Month: 070 Shake - Modus Vivendi
I didn't think much of 070 Shake's weird warbling on Kanye's 2018 projects, but I was kind of confused about what her whole deal is enough to listen to her album and read some interviews. And I've come away from those with the conclusion that she's yet another Kid Cudi disciple in the G.O.O.D. Music orbit who can't really rap well or sing well or write well and heard three rock albums and decided to make some half-assed underproduced gestures at making "alternative" music.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 04, 2020 at 8:21 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.