1. Ashley McBryde - Never Will
It feels like half the albums I was looking forward to coming out in April got rescheduled (Dua Lipa moved up to March while The 1975, Rufus Wainwright, Willie Nelson, and Lady Gaga got pushed back to later in the year). But it still ended up being a really strong month for albums anyway. Ashley McBryde's first major label album with Jay Joyce on production, Girl Going Nowhere, was one of my favorite country albums of 2018. And the first time I heard "One Night Standards" I knew her next album would be even better, and the first 10 songs are just one killer after another, beautiful ballads like "Sparrow" sandwiched between surprisingly loud rockers like "Voodoo Doll" and "Martha Divine." The last track "Styrofoam" breaks the spell a little bit, but I can never begrudge a country album for ending on a lighthearted novelty song, it works better there than it would have earlier on the album. Every new record I listen to that's on Spotify goes into my 2020 albums playlist if you want an easy way to listen to this stuff.

2. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
"Container," the theme song for the Showtime series "The Affair," might be my favorite Fiona Apple of all time, it's such a haunting percussive little piece -- I'm actually pretty annoyed that neither it nor the Waterboys cover Apple did for the series finale are on streaming services. And I think "Container"'s skipping vocal cadence and tumbling percussion were a good gateway for me be primed for Fetch The Bolt Cutters, which finds her and her band pounding on household objects and chanting as much as playing proper instruments. "Under The Table" and "Ladies" are my immediate favorites but "Relay" and "Newspaper" are pretty brilliant too. I have a cool piece related to this album coming out soon, watch this space for that.

3. Kiana Lede - Kiki
Kiana Lede's breakthrough hit "EX" was one of my favorite R&B songs of last year. And it doesn't appear on her debut album, but a lot of Kiki has a similar sound, lots of acoustic guitars and sultry midtempo songs, I really like the sound of her voice and the songs and features never get in the way of it. I'm not familiar with the primary production tea, on the album, Rice N' Peas, but they really did great work, love the jazzy outro on "Plenty More." "Labels" is the only song that kind of makes a tired obvious choice -- seriously, we never need another R&B flip of "Juicy" by Biggie.

4. Brendan Benson - Dear Life
I've been listening to Brendan Benson for a couple decades, so I was pretty thrilled to hear his new album early and interview him about it for Spin. I like how the album opens with this kind of surprising programmed beat on "I Can If You Want Me To" -- I actually did a double take and made sure I had played the right file the first time I put on the album. One interesting thing that didn't make the final cut for the article that I'll share is that "I Can" is Benson's favorite song on the album, but it wasn't his idea to make it the first track -- he felt Jack White is better at sequencing albums and let White do that.

5. Maddie & Tae - The Way It Feels
A half decade ago, "Girl In A County Song" was briefly the most talked about song in Nashville and Maddie & Tae released their debut album. And then the label that released it shut down, and it seemed like Maddie & Tae might become casualties of the same mainstream country indifference toward female artists that their hit was partly about. But they spent a couple years putting out some underappreciated singles and EPs, and the gorgeously forlorn "Die From A Broken Heart" finally got enough radio play for them to release a second album. There's a lot of great songs on here and they wrote all of them, "Drunk Or Lonely," "Bathroom Floor," "Water In His Wine Glass," they've really hit a rich emotional vein on here.

6. Lennon Stella - Three. Two. One.
Lennon Stella and her sister were a proto-Maddie & Tae teen girl country duo called Lennon & Maisy who released a few singles while they had roles on the show "Nashville" (weirdly, Lennon's character on the show was actually named Maddie). But they never seemed to get that far with music outside the show's soundtracks, and now Lennon Stella is a solo artist in the sad Gen Z synth pop mold, and she's really good at it. The whole album is excellent but "Fear Of Being Alone" is the one that when I hear it I just think it should be on the radio right now.

7. X - Alphabetland
X hasn't released a new album since 1993 and Alphabetland is also the first album with Billy Zoom and the whole original lineup since 1985. And it's pretty great to hear a classic punk band like them just show up with a new record after so long like they haven't missed a step, John Doe and Exene Cervenka's voices sound as good together on "Free" and "Star Chambered" as they ever have. Alphabetland is on Bandcamp.

8. E - Complications
E is the latest in a long line of New York or (in this case) Boston-based bands fronted by Thalia Zedek that's included Come, Live Skull, and Uzi (although I just found out that she grew up in Maryland, like 20 minutes from where I live). Complications, their third album for Thrill Jockey, is on Bandcamp, and as always I really just love Zedek's voice and guitar tone, nobody sounds quite like her.

9. DaBaby - Blame It On Baby
A lot of people have complained of DaBaby's overexposure, and I get it, this is his 3rd album in 14 months, and they've all been really successful, alongside his countless features. But releasing short records frequently doesn't bother me -- you could put those 3 albums together as one release and it would still be shorter than Culture II by Migos. The title track of Blame It On Baby is just insane, he kind of toggles back and forth between two drumless beats at different tempos, snapping from one flow into another flawlessly, feels a lot more different and experimental than anything on his last couple projects. And since DaBaby and JetsonMade have this signature sound down at this point, it's fun to hear someone like Future turn up and kind of have to confirm to them instead of just making it sound like a Future song. And it cracks me up that the most R&B song on the album is called "Sad Shit."

10. Shordie Shordie - >Music
Shordie Shordie's group Peso Da Mafia had been big in Baltimore for a few years, but it kinda surprised me when his solo single "Bitchuary (Betchua)" by far surpassed the group's hits and actually the first platinum single by a Baltimore rapper. >Music is a Warner Music release but there are no guests and the beats are by "Bitchuary" producer YGBeats and other Baltimore producers. So it really feels like he's just sticking withe the sound he blew up with and refining it, or experimenting with more melodic songs like "L.O.V." April was a really good month for Baltimore rap, also enjoyed the projects from Elli$ and Bandhunta Izzy.

The Worst Album of the Month: Steve Aoki - Neon Future IV
Steve Aoki is one of those most ridiculous people in mainstream dance music, even without wearing a giant marshmellow or mouse face helmet. He's a rich kid whose parents own the Benihana restaurant chain, and he's more known for throwing sheet cakes at his audiences than for any piece of music he's made. But even without a Chainsmokers-level crossover hit, he consistently entices huge stars from outside EDM to make big ugly genre-blurring collaborations with him, and Neon Future IV alone features appearances from Sting, will.i.am, Zooey Deschanel, Tory Lanez, The Backstreet Boys, and more than a dozen others, all flattened into the same bland paste of generic electro house bangers. I know there are probably a dozen EDM albums like this every year, but now and then I just have to listen to one of them to get my head around the fact that they exist.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 01, 2020 at 11:47 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.