in Top Ten

It seems that the route most internet publications took this year was posting their top ten lists of the decade, and then their top tens of 2019. We’re taking the opposite approach here at Mildly Pleased, seeing as we’ll be doing our top tens of 2019 over the next few weeks, and then switching gears to our top tens of the decade. Which is fine, since we’re in no hurry. We still need to catch up with things this time of year since we’re not professional culture critics, and January and February are such nothing months that we might as well spend them looking back on the decade. But first, let’s take a look back at the year we’re currently in (barely).

Honorable Mentions:
Jamila Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!
Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow
Charly Bliss – Young Enough
Lizzo – Cuz I Love You
Bedouine – Bird Songs of A Killjoy

10. Brittany Howard – Jaime

Alabama Shakes was a band that got really big really fast, and as a result I might have not given them the credit they were due earlier on in this decade. On Jaime, the debut solo effort from Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, she’s shows that the band’s success was no fluke, and that her prowess as a singer and songwriter knows no bounds. Here we see her stretching out a bit further from her signature swamp-rock sounds into something resembling modern funk and R&B. Also, like any great solo artist from a well-known rock group, Howard shows a newfound comfort in making her songs just a little bit more personal and intimate in revelatory ways.

9. Bruce Springsteen – Western Stars

After reading Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography earlier this year, it became apparent to me that The Boss has a complicated relationship with California. First, his parents moved there when Bruce was 19, leaving him to pick up the pieces of his tumultuous family life and forge his identity in where else but New Jersey. Then there was the ’90s, a period where Bruce moved to LA and carved out a contented family life while artistically floundering without the mighty E Street band by his side. Western Stars sees Springsteen writing about the many myths associated with the American West, and in the process recording some of the best sounding songs he’s put out in years.

8. Ariana Grande – thank u, next

These days, new music seems to come and go at a dizzying rate. But thank u, next, an album that was released in early February 2019, seemed to stick around for nearly the whole year. It already came preloaded with one of the best pop songs of 2018, but somehow managed to live up to that track’s potential with a consistently great collection of songs tailored to worm their way into your ear, but not in a way that overstayed its welcome or felt too eager to please. Combine that with the album’s confessional account of Grande’s very tumultuous year, and you’ve got a pop album that fulfilled its duty of slappin’ and boppin’ and whatnot, but also cut just a little bit deeper.

7. Solange – When I Get Home

Crafting a follow-up to a career-defining album like A Seat At The Table can’t be an easy task, but Solange managed to do it in a way that felt just right. The stfructure of When I Get Home feels very similar to its predecessor, but things are just a little bit weirder and looser. Sure, the album is composed of what are technically songs, but they never quite feel like songs in the traditional sense. This makes it all the more impressive that the album never feels alienating. Instead, it provides a delicious platter of sounds that you can pick and put down anytime you want, though I found myself listening to the whole thing repeatedly, even if it meant getting through 13 tracks to get to the weirdly perfect and perfectly succinct “Binz”.

6. Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Ugh. Putting an album like this on my list really makes me feel like my end-of-year lists tend to be a little basic. But what can I say? Like many skeptics, Lana Del Rey finally won me over with this album, though I’d always suspected she wasn’t deserving of the mild hatred people seemed to have for her. I’m not sure she’s doing anything terribly different on NFR, but everything is just a little bit bigger and grander, while Del Rey’s signature sadness is nothing short of intoxicating. Sure, it’s a little longer than it needs to be, but every track is great mood music – if that mood is enjoying the world’s beauty while slowly watching it burn.

5. Jenny Lewis – On The Line

On The Line – the fourth solo album by one-time indie phenom Jenny Lewis – was far from the most exciting album to come out this year. But it’s one that has continued to stick with me for whatever reason. Maybe chalk it up to Lewis’s ever solidifying prowess as a songwriter, while each song is sprinkled with a little bit of wisdom mixed with a dash of bite. There’s also something about the fact that the album features hallowed veterans of LA’s music scene (Beck, Ringo, some Heartbreakers), which imbues the songs with the ghosts of the city’s past, while also trying to live comfortably in an uncomfortable present. It’s a shame we’re not doing Top Ten Songs of the year, since the album’s epically whistful title track would surely be on mine.

4. Angel Olsen – All Mirrors

Angel Olsen didn’t have to do this. She’d already thrown herself into two of the best rock records of the 2010s with My Woman and Burn Your Fire For No Witness. Yet with All Mirrors, she dared to push her sound even further by going bigger and more operatic, despite having a voice that was already prone to wonderful histrionics. I feel like the natural course for any guitar-based indie artist is that after having some success, they go full synth-pop. Angel Olsen kind of went there on All Mirrors, yet there’s also a jazzy and orchestral bent that keeps the songs from ever feeling like they’re chasing any current trends, and instead like they’re reaching for maximum catharsis at any cost.

3. Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride

For many reasons, this didn’t feel like your typical Vampire Weekend album, and yet it still had the same effect on me that every Vampire Weekend album has. Namely, that I wanted to listen to it over and over again. Ezra Koenig’s knack for irresistible melodies is still intact, even if his grasp on the narrow criteria of what this band should be has loosed a bit. The lyrics aren’t nearly as specific, while a general easiness about the pains of growing older hangs over everything. The music is also a little more open, with many collaborators and sounds seeping into this sprawling (for VW) collection of songs. I already was convinced that Vampire Weekend was one of the defining bands of their era before Father of the Bride, but this just solidified their reputation as a band of constant reinvention.

2. Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising

Sometimes the best albums are the ones so good that it’s a little hard to talk about them. Like, what is there to say about the rapturous beauty of Titanic Rising? It’s just a fantastic sounding record, indebted to the past, but also such a product of our bittersweet, doomed current climate. The production is sweeping and (dare I say it) titanic. Yet it never seems to overshadow the songs, since everything feels so seamlessly blended with Natalie Mering’s voice. Throughout the album she comes off as a bit of an enigma, sometimes commenting on the complicated world around her, but often finding something to believe in, whether it’s really there or just an image on a movie screen.

1. Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

Whether you have the capacity to write songs about it or not, we all have our struggles with being a human. The final years of David Berman’s life I’m sure were filled with lots of doubt and internal strife over what the point is of carrying on day-after-day. One would think that putting out an album as observant, wry, and vital as Purple Mountains would have been enough to keep the man going. But life, of course, is more mysterious than that.

It’s hard not to think about David Berman’s suicide just a month after this album’s release when listening to Purple Mountains. It’s also hard not to think that I might have avoided listening to it entirely if I hadn’t already been hooked on the album before Berman’s unfortunate passing. It’s a very heavy thing listening to someone put their pain into their art knowing that this pain would soon overtake them. Fortunately, Berman was able to capture his final days with a kind of clarity and affability that shows why he was such a singular songwriting talent, and why he’ll sorely be missed.