Author Archives: jms

As disclosed in the award announcement, our album of the year category this year is composed of the winners of all our genre categories, as well as one personally chosen record from each writer. Since the Best Album podcast is due up within 24 hours, now is the time to talk about those personal picks. So, let’s! Continue reading →

This is my first year writing the pop category. Usually I immediately defer this to Halverson because it’s a style that he’s usually more immersed in and comfortable talking about. Then again, as we’ve said, this year has been utterly amazing.

Also it felt weird writing Best Rock Album every time we’ve done this. Unfair, even. So he’s gonna do that.

ANYWAYS. Pop music, as we tend to describe it here is about the pursuit of beauty in conventional musical standards. Melodies and lush soundscapes and ruminations on the world, things like this. This year had such a number of worthy contenders that at a point it was painful to narrow down to a final six- a problem we’ve usually had with rock and rap, our primary focuses. So our decision comes down to the ingenuity of Daughn Gibson, the strong growth of Frank Ocean’s range, Grizzly Bear’s sweeping dynamics, the stunning comprehensibility of the Dirty Projectors, and the complete doubling down of both Mesita and Sharon Van Etten. Continue reading →

Electronic has always been a category that comes together at the last minute for us, usually centered around one or two obvious choices from earlier in the year. This is both more and less true this year. More than half of the category comes from before the halfway point of the year: Grimes and her Visions, Laurel Halo’s time in Quarantine, iamamiwhoami’s cohesive and living kin, and funny wordplay involving WIXIW by Liars. Yet, the two albums that made the biggest initial impacts on us came in the last three months of the year in the return of Flying Lotus and the (in my case) literal houseshaking appearance of Raime. As with all of our categories these are all truly excellent records, but I’m sure the winner seems obvious. Continue reading →

Although it was started it for a purely utilitarian reason- “where do we put these records”- this category has since become the thing that allows me to go out there and dig into the wilder shit that catches my ear. And this year’s wilder shit is even more unhinged from popular standards than last year. Doseone is so far the only person to appear in this category twice, with a record that sounds like last year’s 13 & God dropped in a blender and sweetened with processed honey. And somehow, his is one of the more approachable records when you hold it up against the ghost of Chris Reimer, the feedback invocations of White Suns, the confrontational madness of B L A C K I E, the unhinged noise of Aaron Dilloway, and Scott Walker’s horror story symphony. Continue reading →