I won't go into this record at length too much because I have a piece about it running later this month, watch this space for that. But I was a big fan of The Lemon Twigs' last album, 2018's Go To School, which was kind of a funny self-recorded concept album about a chimp raised by humans, but it's cool to hear them go into proper studios and make these kind of thoughtful, insightful songs about love and relationships sound as lush and beautiful as possible. And there's still this playful aspect where "Hell On Wheels" sounds like they went 'OK, I've sung most of this song like Iggy Pop but now I'm gonna sing a few lines like Bob Dylan.' Here's my 2020 albums Spotify playlist that has every new record I've listened to this year in it, including all of these. 

I feel like Amine is at a specific and exciting stage in an artist's career when their biggest hit, in his case "Caroline," is more than a couple years in the rearview but the buzz around them as an artist is still really building, I think people are still finding out how talented he is. I really thought Good For You was an excellent album and Limbo is even better, has a good balance of funky goofy stuff and things with a little more gravity. After the album came out, there was a day or two of mild Twitter controversy over the fact that there's a song about dating a white girl, which I thought was funny since a) you listened to a rapper from Oregon and was surprised by this? and b) "Becky" is not remotely a celebratory song about interracial relationships. 

Victoria Monet co-wrote a lot of Ariana Grande's best songs of the last few years, and she has a great voice in her own right and I'm glad she's gotten a shot at her own solo career. Jaguar is only 25 minutes and has been pitched as the first of 3 installments of her debut album, but it feels pretty substantial unto itself, the production on "Moment" and "Dive" and "Jaguar" is just so sumptuous and luxurious. Even the compulsory Khalid duet that every young pop/R&B starlet gets these days is pretty good and feels more like he's stepping into her aesthetic than vice versa. 

I feel like people are so polarized about post-Illmatic Nas, I think most of his albums are roughly in the same class of pretty good, but there's always a narrative swinging in one direction or another -- Street's Disciple is better than people say it is and Life Is Good isn't as good as people say it is, they're all closer than their reputations suggest. But Nasir genuinely was his worst album, so the narrative is swinging towards people overrating the good but flawed King's Disease. But Hit-Boy is a good fit for Nas right now and sounds like he's actually trying unlike Kanye, so it is kind of a breath of fresh air. I love how often you just hear Charlie Wilson's voice pop up on rap albums now, he's on the Nas album as well as the Amine album. 

Reforester is a newish Baltimore trio that includes my friend Austin Stahl, former frontman of Private Eleanor. A few years ago I played a show with Austin's band Mink Hollow, which featured multiple members taking turns on lead vocals, and Reforester is a little similar in that respect, all three members sing lead on the 6-song Perpetuity and the 3-song self-titled EP they released last year. I'm a big fan of bands having multiple lead singer/songwriters sharing the spotlight, but it's obviously easier said than done and you have to have a certain musical chemistry that makes a coherent whole, and Reforester has that, Austin and Steve Hefter and Chris Laun's songs sound good together. Perpetuity has this very crisp soft rock sound, smooth vocal harmonies, and I love Laun's basslines, produced by Chris Freeland and mastered by my friend Mat Leffler-Schulman. Check it out on Bandcamp. 

A lot of bands start to have some lineup changes after being around for 15+ years, but The Killers are kind of an odd case because the original quartet is officially intact, but half the band has been on hiatus for the last few years while frontman Brandon Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci have continued to tour and record without them. It seems vaguely dysfunctional but also kind of nice that they seem to really want the original guitarist and bassist to get involved again and just work with other people on a temporary basis. And it actually works, as I said when I did my Killers deep cuts playlist, Vannucci's drumming is one of my favorite things about the band, so in a weird way this one of the rare rock bands where the guitarist and bassist are maybe the most easily replaced members. Jonathan Rado of Foxygen co-produced both the new Lemon Twigs album and Imploding The Mirage, and was one of the people playing a lot of the guitar on this album. And "Dying Breed" in particular has that Sam's Town vibe that I love, though it actually interpolates NEU! and Can. And "Fire And Bone" is weirdly funky in a way that works for them. 

Spell My Name follows in the mold of 2018's Sex & Cigarettes, another short but consistent album that sounds like Toni Braxton has really figured out her sound and can do it in a modern context without sounding like she's trying too hard to stay current, as best illustrated by "Gotta Move On," featuring H.E.R. and co-written by Jeremih. And the two versions of the single "Do It" are distinct enough that it actually works to have both on the album. 

Blackbear is kind of the definitive douchey C-list millennial white rapper/singer. He's worked with MGK, G-Eazy, Mike Posner, Justin Bieber, and Riff Raff, and his biggest hit, Everything Means Nothing's horrible lead single "Hot Girl Bummer," equaled and arguably eclipsed the popularity of the song it was inspired by, Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer." He's definitely leaning more towards being a singer now, sort of like Post Malone is, but he doesn't even have the knack for hooks that Post has, it's just a bunch of grumbly monotonous breakup songs. 

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