#24 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Father John Misty

Mahashmashana by Father John Misty

I’m ready to accept the reality of my situation: I am an unbelieving, reluctant Father John Misty fan. At 12+ years into my fandom, I’m confident this outlook will never change. I have a pattern for each of his releases. Step 1 is surprise: “Oh, I guess FJM is still producing music.” Step 2 is reluctance: “OK, I’ll give it a listen, but this won’t be as good as his past work.” Step 3 is acceptance: “Yep, it sounds like an FJM album, but I’m not really feeling it. Good background music I guess.” Step 4 is back to surprise: “Wow, ok, the FJM record from this year is a great record.” Mahashmashana, Josh Tillman’s sixth Father John Misty record, is no different – it is, unbelievably, another great record.

I don’t think my reluctance to expect greatness from FJM is solely my fault. Everything about Tillman’s alter ego is an intentional joke, taking the piss of the entire indie rock star genre. From his name (seriously, “Father John Misty,” really?), to his sultry, make-ladies-throw-their-panties-on-stage crooner stage presence, Tillman is clearly having a ton of fun. These aren’t laugh-out-loud jokes – they’re knowing winks that are easy to pick up if you’re paying even the mildest amount of attention. And I’m — gulp — very much here for it.

All six of Tillman’s Father John Misty albums have been on the Top 31:

• Fear Fun: #14 in 2012
• I Love You, Honeybear: #6 in 2015
• Pure Comedy: #15 in 2017
• God's Favorite Customer: #26 in 2018
• Chloë and the Next 20th Century: #9 in 2022

I won’t be able to give you a ranking of the albums – put any one of them on, and you’ll have the same, pleasant experience. It takes about five complete listens of any FJM album to start really appreciating the individual songs. “Screamland,” featured above, is a unique video of a great song. The video is formatted for vertical phone viewing, like a 6+ minute Tik Tok movie. Tillman has a couple other videos out, for songs “She Cleans Up” and “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose,” and watching all three videos back-to-back will give you a good sense of the depth of this album, and really what Father John Misty is capable of across the board.

One other video I’d like to direct your attention to is “Real Love Baby,” which only came out this year, despite the non-album single having been released back in 2016. The song was originally written by Tillman for Lady Gaga, but according to Wikipedia he became enamored with it so much he ended up keeping it for himself. The groundbreaking video takes the happy song to an over-the-top explosion of joy, making this my nominee for top feel-good song of 2024. Watch the video – featuring a collection of Tik Tok dancers who were not originally dancing to FJM’s song, but happened to be hitting the right beat, so are repurposed to appear as though people from all walks of life are all enjoying the same FJM song.

According to Pitchfork, Mahashmashana is an anglicization of mahāśmaśāna, the Sanskrit word for “cremation ground”: the burning wasteland before the next life. While it feels to me like Father John Misty hasn’t really changed (or needed to change) much over the last 12 years, that title makes me feel like Tillman believes he’s changed. He did become a father between the creation of this album and the previous album, Chlöe, and while this album doesn’t gush about fatherhood, maybe that is the change Tillman is speaking to. Only time will tell, and likely another album that I reluctantly listen to, begin to enjoy, and eventually love, to determine whether he’s made any noticeable change. For now, we have six albums that are each great in their own right. There is no denying, Tillman is one of the best, and Mahashmashana fits right in.

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25. Strawberry Hotel by Underworld
26. Faith Crisis Pt 1 by Middle Kids
27. Romance by Fontaines D.C.
28. Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
29. Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA
30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#25 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Underworld

Strawberry Hotel by Underworld

29 years ago, two seminal events happened that changed the course of my media intake forever. 1: Trainspotting, Danny Boyle’s life-affirming film of Scottish author Irvine Welsh’s heroin-fueled novel, hit the theaters on February 23, 1996, bringing with it a phenomenal soundtrack, including a lesser-known electronic band called Underworld and their top-10 all-time song, “Born Slippy .NUXX.” 2: Underworld released their sophomore album, Second Toughest in the Infants on March 11, 1996.

Trainspotting features a handful of mid-twenties friends trying to make it through life, at a time when I myself was coming into my mid-twenties. Both the novel and the film connected with me in a way that nothing else had to date. The soundtrack features a wide variety of artists, from classic rock of the 70s in Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, through 80s brit pop in New Order, Blur, and Pulp, to 90s electronic artists like Leftfield and Underworld. I developed a love of ALL of the artists featured on the soundtrack, but Underworld were above and beyond my favorite band of my 20s.

I remember the CD shop I frequented in college, and remember the day I picked up Second Toughest there. I can picture the location, the CD in my hand, excited to bring it to my apartment and listen to it. From its opening track “Juanita” through the closing “Stagger,” it is a phenomenal album through and through.

In addition to making great music, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith — the duo that make the bulk of Underworld’s music — were part of a graphic design collective called Tomato that, along with folks like David Carson, shaped the zeitgeist of design in the 90s. Being in school and studying visual communications at that time, absorbing everything aural and visual created by the band, seared them onto my still-forming mind.

I went back in time and fell in love with their great 1994 debut, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, and continued to love them through their third album, 1999’s Beaucoup Fish. As I grew older, they kept making albums, but I started to move on. I enjoyed their 2002 album, A Hundred Days Off, but 2007’s Oblivion with Bells didn’t fit my mid-30s world. I started documenting my Top 31 in 2009, but the band’s 2010 release, Barking, didn’t make it onto that year’s Top 31. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future, from 2016, made it onto the list at #30, but reading my words about the album then make it clear they were receiving a consolation prize, a shadow of their former selves. 2019’s Drift Series 1 did not rate.

But I still found myself going back to those 90s albums — more out of reminiscing than anything else. I bought the vinyl reissue of Dubnobasswithmyheadman in the mid 10’s, and I love it. But nothing new they were creating in the 2000s was matching their 90s greatness. This is my long, circuitous route to getting to the crux of the matter: this sentiment has changed with the duo’s 2024 release, Strawberry Hotel, their 11th album. This album is a resurgence of the Underworld of old. It hits all the same notes for me, despite the fact that I am now in my 50s.

Hit play on the video above, for the opening track “Black Poppies.” Gorgeous and lush, this song creates a soundscape of warmth that hums with excitement. You can also watch an alternate version, “Black Poppies (Unplugged), performed by a six-piece string group of college students that was put together by the band. Absolutely beautiful. And the band still has a grasp on driving, thumping beats: watch the visualizer for “Techno Shinkansen” and you’ll hear what I mean.

Maybe now that I’m working on my fifth decade of living I am in a nostalgic world, trying to reclaim my youth. It’s impossible for me to not hear Underworld from that biased stance. But I do love Strawberry Hotel, and I’m energized by the fact that they (and by extension, me, too) can keep making relevant, exciting things in 2025. I hope you’ll join me in this excitement.

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26. Faith Crisis Pt 1 by Middle Kids
27. Romance by Fontaines D.C.
28. Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
29. Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA
30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#26 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Middle Kids

Faith Crisis Pt 1 by Middle Kids

A huge influence on what I listen to is my local publicly-funded radio station KEXP. If you live in the Seattle area, you have no legit reason to NOT listen to – and I don’t say this lightly – the greatest radio station in the world while you drive around town. But no matter where you live, you can always stream the station live from kexp.org, or you can use their streaming archive to listen to anything they played on the air from the previous two weeks. So, really, nobody reading this has any excuse for not listening to KEXP.

It’s because of KEXP I first heard of the band here at #26, Sydney, Australia’s Middle Kids, back in 2017. And it’s because of KEXP, because of morning DJ (and Associate Program Director) John Richards, that I fell in love with the Middle Kids in 2024. Specifically, there is one song from which this love has grown: “Bend,” featured in the video above. It certainly helps that this song was the most-played song by John in the Morning in 2024. Go ahead and hit play above, listen in full, then come back to this point. I’ll wait.

Stellar, no? This song is not indicative of the other songs on Faith Crisis, and I have to admit, the trio’s “alternative” sound on the rest of the album creates a barrier of entry that probably puts off a lot of folks who read this blog at first. But once you hear the album a few times, it grows on you, in you, and around you to create this bouncy, joyous, love of life, melodic, polished rock & roll tour de force.

The band is made up of husband-and-wife duo Hannah Joy (vocals and guitar) and Tim Fitz (bass), plus drummer Harry Day (who went to school with Joy)¹. Faith Crisis, Pt. 1 is their third album, and the first to come after the birth of Joy and Fitz’s two children. They talk a bit about how their personal lives influenced this record in their KEXP performance from earlier this year.

In addition to “Bend,” featured above, the band has released six (6!) additional videos over the past year in promotion of Faith Crisis:

• “Terrible News”
• “Dramamine”
• “Highlands”
• “Bootleg Firecracker”
• “The Blessings”
• “Your Side, Forever”

Despite the fact that 2024 has now come and gone, there’s no way this will be the last time I hear “Bend” or the Middle Kids. Perhaps this is the first time you’re hearing of them, and I hope you’ll join me in seeking them out in the future.

^{1. With those names, its crazy to me they didn’t name themselves Joy Fitz Day or something like that, but of course they didn’t talk to me about it. If any of you know the band at all, feel free to put them in touch with my lawyer and we can work something out I’m sure.↩}

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27. Romance by Fontaines D.C.
28. Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
29. Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA
30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#27 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Fontaines D.C.

Romance by Fontaines D.C.

Fontaines D.C. have managed a feat very few other bands have: they’ve released four albums as a band, and all four of those albums have been on the Bacon Top 31: their debut, Too Real was #26 in 2019, A Hero’s Death was #12 in 2020, and Skinty Fia came in at #20 in 2022. Their fantastic fourth album, Romance, is coming in at #27 here in 2024. That’s an impressive run of great albums.

Romance feels different from the band’s past post-punk efforts. This album is darker, more The Cure-like, with a little more force behind it, reminding me of Clinic’s 25-year-old (!) album Internal Wrangler. There’s still Grian Chatten’s Irish-accented, more sung-than-spoken lead vocals, and the four other members building out the music. But there’s more depth to the songwriting that didn’t used to be there. Hit play on the video above, for their song “Starburster.” The monotone verses that lead into the deep-breath chorus immediately puts you on edge. Then at the bridge of the song, you’ll hear Chatten channeling his best Damon Albarn.

These are all positive shifts in the music from Fontaines, but let’s also talk about the videos. “Starburster” above is a strange, alien mystery of a narrative. Chatten uses an inhaler to fill in on the song’s deep-breath choruses, and the story shifts at each breath. Crazy makeup and costumes abound, all in an off-kilter way that makes you feel uneasy. Then there’s the video for “Here’s the Thing,” which features a girl mocked for her high-school talent-show riverdance set who then finds a supernatural girl group to enact revenge on the mockers.

The craziest video is for the song “In the Modern World.” Ewan Mitchell, aka Game of Thrones’ Aemond Targaryen, takes center stage, as a low-life who engages in non-sactioned car-jitsu in public settings. Pretty sure you won’t know what car-jitsu is any more than I did, so watch the video and you’ll get a sense for it. Yes, it’s a real sport. And yes, it’s ridiculous.

The most “normal” video of the bunch is for the song “Favourite,” which leans heavily on old home video footage from the band members’ families, jumping around in the band’s history from birth to now. It actually feels kinda pleasant, especially when compared to the other three videos.

I’m loving this shift in musical direction for Fontaines D.C., and I’m not the only one: KEXP listeners voted Romance as the #1 album of 2024. While I can’t make it number one, it does speak to the strength of the music that came out this year that I’m only able to put it in at #27, through no fault of Romance. Give it a listen, even if you haven’t liked Fontaines in the past. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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28. Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
29. Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA
30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#28 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Jessica Pratt

Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt, the folk singer / songwriter out of Redding, California, turned 37 in 2024. Meaning she was – unbelievably – born in 1987, well after the 1960s. Go ahead and hit play on the song “Life Is,” featured in the video above, and I dare you to tell me you haven’t been transported to some tropical island locale from 60 years ago.

Here in the Pitch, Pratt’s fantastic 2024 release, is her fourth album. She’s been releasing lovely, critically-acclaimed music since her self-titled debut album in 2012, when she would have been only 25, and based on the strength of Pitch I aim to cue up those previous releases ASAP. She’s the closest you’ll get to new music from Leonard Cohen in the 21st century.

A gorgeous, dreamy, acoustic-guitar and brushed-drum-laden blanket of warmth – that is what you experience in these quiet-yet-powerful songs. Pratt’s voice is echoed throughout, as if she were singing on a darkened stage in an abandoned cathedral. Guitar, voice, and soft percussion are the mainstay, with an occasional doubling or harmonizing of her own voice, and “Life Is” is not an anomaly – check out “World on a String” and you can extrapolate the rest of Pitch from there.

Put this album on while hosting your next Kodachrome-colored back-yard BBQ or luau, or have it playing in the background of your next key party. Pop it onto your reel-to-reel, blast it through your hi-fi, light up a joint and be whisked back to the era of your parents (or grandparents?). Pratt’s music just hits better that way.

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29. Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA
30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#29 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — BODEGA

Brand On The Run / Our Brand Could Be Yr Life by BODEGA

Wikipedia strangely calls the band at #29, New York City’s BODEGA, a “punk band,” when nothing could be farther from the truth. Granted, my only experience with the band is their phenomenal fifth album, Our Brand Could Be Yr Life (which has a differently named deluxe version: Brand on the Run – an album name I am predisposed to love given its connection to the band Wings and to the word “brand,” which is the type of work I do in the daylight hours). It is most definitely not a punk album.

I guess I have more listening to do to truly understand who BODEGA the band is, and until that time I’ll concentrate on this latest album only. I’ve been listening to the album since just December 11, which is the day I pinged my more musically-inclined friends to ask them “what albums would you be disappointed to not see on this year’s Top 31?” My friend Ryan suggested BODEGA, and I couldn’t be happier about his suggestion.

He recommended I start listening at “Myrtle Parade,” featured in the video above, which is also track 1 of the bonus songs included in the aforementioned deluxe version. That song is indicative of a lot of the songs on the album – catchy, poppy, strong bass line and very much out of sync with the other indie-rock sounds of today. This song feels more like an early 90s song you’d hear on MTV’s 120 Minutes, paired with Camper van Beethoven and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. Other songs, like “ATM,” or the album-closing “N.A.S.S.,” must be outtakes from an early 80s Adam and the Ants album. “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Drum” stole its baseline from Green Day.

New wave, post-punk, “alternative” – anything but punk. Give some more songs a listen. “Cultural Controvery III” – a jangly, fast moving song on the album, has two similar-but-different slower versions, titled “I” and “II” naturally. The band even released a “IV” that is not on the album. Other videos from the album that you can enjoy are “Tarkovski” and “City Is Taken,” the latter of which has Nikki Belfiglio taking over on vocals.

BODEGA have been around for about 10 years, and the songs on Brand are apparently a retelling of songs the band recorded in 2015 under the slightly different “Bodega Bay” name. As you can tell from this review, the band jumps all over the place in their sound, begging us to commit to multiple repeat listens to fully understand what they’re driving at. I’ve done so, and will continue to do so, as I find myself being rewarded in new ways each time.

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30. People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands
31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#30 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Future Islands

People Who Aren’t There Anymore by Future Islands

Admittedly, I have been slow to get on the Future Islands train. The Baltimore four-piece have been around for nearly 20 years. People Who Aren’t There Anymore is their fourth album for 4AD, and their seventh full-length album overall. It is fantastic.

The band first hit my radar with their song “Seasons (Waiting on You),” the opening banger on their first 4AD album, 2014’s Singles. While I’ve loved that song for a decade, the band has never been able to rise above their “steady, pleasant background music” status in my library. People Who Aren’t There Anymore would probably have stayed in that same category if it weren’t for the sense of FOMO I started to feel in the build-up to the band’s September 13, 2024 show at the Paramount Theater here in Seattle. Enough of my friends were excitedly talking about going to that show that I felt I needed to see what the hubbub was all about.

And wow am I glad I did. The band’s keyboard-driven electro-pop sound is well produced and sounds smooth as a Baileys on ice in recorded form. But in a live setting it morphs into something else: expert staging combine with driving beats and intense strobing lights, while lead singer Sam Herring pulls you into this world he and the band have built. The 40-year old singer dances and struts around the stage like an amped up Mick Jagger – lots of high kicks and jumping slides. He is electric, and an absolute joy to watch. After seeing that show, I vowed to never miss Future Islands when they come back to town.

Hearing the songs from People Who Aren’t There Anymore in this setting changes your understanding and perception of the songs. “The Tower,” featured in the video above, is a great example of what the band is capable of. If you listen closely and close your eyes, you can imagine how this might translate to the live stage. Make sure you picture Herring’s non-stop moving about the stage like his batteries have been overcharged.

You can watch a couple other videos of songs from the album. “Deep in the Night” is a slower ballad that makes you feel something you didn’t know you had. “The Thief”, a bit more upbeat, doesn’t have the band in the video, but instead features four dancers in a modern-dance performance choreographed to the song.

I encourage you to also watch their performance of the album‘s opening track “King of Sweden” on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show back in February 2022. If you’re in a hurry, fast forward to about the 3-minute mark to get a taste of Herring’s stage presence. Then imagine that kind of energy stretched out over 90 minutes of pure bliss.

Next time Future Islands come through town I’ll be sure to rope you in so you can experience it first hand. For now, enjoy People and keep your eyes peeled and ears open for new albums to come.

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31. White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

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#31 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Alan Sparhawk

Welcome to the 16th annual Bacon Top 31. I love sharing new music that I enjoy with others, and that’s what the Top 31 is all about. It’s where I share my top 31 albums of the previous year, in descending order, one a day throughout the month of January. For each album, I write a little bit about the history of the artist, their presence (if any) on past Top 31s, and why this particular album was special to me in 2024.

In addition to being a judgmental sharer of the music I love, I’m a visual person. As part of my reviews, I share at least one music video from each album, if there are any of available to share. My music blogging started back even before the invention of YouTube in 2005: I had a strong desire to share the cool music videos that I’d come across on the still-young internet. I love how a music video can bring music to life in a whole new way.

The Bacon Top 31, as well as my taste in music, has been through a lot these past 16 years. Sure, I’ve settled into the half-century mark squarely in the “sad dad” scene, but my musical loves have grown out in strange and interesting ways, influenced by my wife and kids, but also by my own pointed efforts in broadening my horizons. A few years back I did a survey of female voices over the past Top 31s, and was appalled to find out that there was very little representation of women in my tastes. These last few years, that has changed drastically.

I plan to do some further cross-year examination into genres where I feel like I’ve grown considerably, but that will have to wait so as not to spoil the fun of revealing who I’ve been listening to and loving these past 12 months. For now, I’m glad that you’re here – and if this is your first year reading, or if you’ve been with me since 2009, I hope you enjoy these next 31 days of reviews. Let the Top 31 begin!

White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk

Mimi Parker, longtime wife of Alan Sparhawk, who together formed the core duo of the band Duluth, Minnesota band Low, lost her battle against ovarian cancer at the age of 55 on November 6, 2022.

Low only appeared on the Top 31 one time, for their final album Hey What, at #10 in 2021. I was a fan of Low off-and-on for most of their 30-year history, and while I didn’t love every one of their 13 albums, and never once saw them live, their Christmas EP has been played religiously (ha ha) in my house since I first heard it over two decades ago. Low was iconic, despite never having had a hit single, and the music Sparhawk and Parker made together will continue to live on atop an indie rock pedestal of high regard.

Friends, it’s hard to put the universe into language and into a short message, but

She passed away last night, surrounded by family and love, including yours. Keep her name close and sacred. Share this moment with someone who needs you. Love is indeed the most important thing.

— LOW (@lowtheband) November 6, 2022

White Roses, My God is Sparhawk’s first foray into what comes next, his first attempts at creating something when half of his creative soul has been torn away. The album is rudimentary in its execution, very much unlike anything Low created, but it’s also somehow very much Sparhawk. The electronic sounds, the mutated vocals singing seemingly stream-of-consciousness lyrics, the album is not an easy listen. I can’t imagine what it would be like to listen to the album without knowing its provenance. But in the context of Sparhawk’s life, it makes perfect sense.

The second song on the album, “I Made This Beat,” appears childlike, with Sparhawk singing the title over and over again throughout. It is simple, droning, and on its own: fairly unlistenable. But with the context of understanding that Mimi Parker, the main person who played the drums in Low, the one responsible for the beat of all Low songs, is no longer able to make the beats for Sparhawk. He isn’t just searching for something to sing to carry over the top of the beat he’s made — he’s wallowing in the fact that it was he who had to make the beat, because he has lost his previous source for such creation.

Since Parker’s passing, Sparhawk has thrown himself into music-making, in a creativity-as-mourning shift. In addition to recording and releasing White Roses, he’s:

• formed a funk band called Damien, with he and Parker’s son
• joined another funk band called Derecho Rhythm Section, which features both of their children
• created a Neil Young covers act called Tired Eyes, and
• formed a noise-rock band called Feast of Lanterns

According to Pitchfork, next year he’s releasing a collaborative album with Duluth bluegrass group Trampled by Turtles. And he even plays on the Father John Misty record that came out in November (more to come on that).

Low, and Mimi Parker, will be deeply missed. But their music will live on. Thankfully for us, Sparhawk himself has no plans of receding into the background. He is carrying on, and we are all the better for it.

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#1 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — boygenius

the record by boygenius

“Give me everything you’ve got”: the first words you hear, sung in glorious three-part harmony by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. And “everything” is exactly what boygenius, the group formed by these three already-plenty-accomplished singer-songerwriters, has given us. Ladies and gentlemen, the record by boygenius is the Bacon Review #1 album of 2023.

You have likely heard of these three — each of the individual most recent albums from Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus have appeared in past Top 31s (Little Oblivions at #6 in 2021, Punisher at #2 in 2020, and Home Video at #23 in 2021, respectively (but none of their earlier albums because I had my head in the ground, apparently). And while I do love the music from each of them individually, there is something “super” about the music produced by this supergroup.

I first fell in love with boygenius on their self-titled 6-song 2018 EP. The three women met while Bridgers and Dacus both opened for Baker on separate tours in 2016, and joked about the “pipe dream” of the three of them forming a band. They booked a co-headlining tour in 2018, and sat down to write one new song that they all could perform together on stage. The EP came out of that initial energy, written, recorded and produced in four days. While the EP was well-received, it didn’t appear on the Top 31 that year because I had stupid restrictions about what could make it onto the list, and EPs didn’t qualify. ¹

As time went on, signs were pointing to them doing something more together. All three performed on each others’ 2020 and 2021 albums mentioned above, contributing mostly backing vocals to a handful of songs. And then in late 2021 they performed together as boygenius again at a benefit show in San Francisco. They separated throughout 2022 to allow themselves to headline on their individual tours to promote their Covid-released albums from the years prior. In the fall of 2022 they got back together and secretly recorded what would become the record. The official announcement of the album came on January 18, with a release of the trio of tracks, “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” and “True Blue” as the lead singles from the album. (the film, featured above, is the accompanying video that was released a couple months later. Directed by actress-cum-director Kristen Stewart, it focuses on each of the three women on the song in which they were the lead writer on: Baker, Bridgers, then Dacus.)

The pre-release hype continued to build with the release of a fourth single, “Not Strong Enough,” along with an accompanying video shot by the three singers and edited by Bridgers’ brother Jackson (who also directed the video that features Bridgers for The National’s “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend,” mentioned in yesterday’s #2 album review). All four singles were instant, ear-worm classics, on repeat in the Bacon Review home up until March 31 when the record finally saw full release. It was an easy transition from listening to the four singles back to back, to listening to the full album on repeat, and it continues through to today.

Each individually known for their command of deep, emotive lyrics, and each with their own singing / vocal style, the record plays well to their strengths. Some songs have a clear lead throughout, with the other two women singing harmonies. And some songs, such as “Not Strong Enough”² and “Cool About It” (and it’s great animated video) feature each singer separately taking a verse or bridge all to themselves. Their voices are distinct between them – Bridgers higher and raspier, Baker full-bodied, and Dacus lower with all the edges filed down.

Not only did I love this album,³ it resonated well with my family, and that always factors into what gets played in the household. One of the beauties of this album in particular is my son, who is fifteen and has broken free from my musical clutches to form his own tastes, came to me one day and asked “have you heard of boygenius?” I’d be hard-pressed to find a parenting moment as rewarding as having my child discover a band himself and love it independent of my direct influence (while clearly having been indirectly influenced by living under my roof for 15 years).

There are many moments in this album where the lyrics are so heartfelt and gorgeous, paired with the perfect rise in volume or culmination in instrumentation that it causes chills. The chorus of “True Blue” (“and it feels good to be known so well, I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself”). The third verse of “Cool About It” (with its interpolation of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” so strong they thanked him for the inspiration on the liner notes), that goes “Once, I took your medication to know what it’s like, and now I have to act like I can‘t read your mind.”

The climax of “$20” is particularly brilliant, with Baker on lead singing “Gas, out of time, out of money, you’re doing what you can, just making it run” while Dacus sings “Take a break, make your escape, there‘s only so much I can” and Bridgers slowly repeating “Can you give me twenty dollars” over and over building to a screaming crescendo. Each of their voices weave in and out, all layers and words, yet entirely distinct to the careful listener.

None of the members of boygenius are yet 30. While I can’t say for sure there will be more songs/albums to come from the band, they each have literal decades in front of them to continue to blow us away. From what I’ve seen, the tour videos, and the instagram posts, the three of them have been having a blast writing and performing together. It feels impossible that they won’t be able to figure out how to keep that energy going well into the future. Maybe they’re establishing a pattern – get together, record and tour, then break for some solo replenishing, only to reconvene four years later. Or maybe they’ve truly given us everything they’ve got. We’ll continue to get solo music from each of them for sure, so if we’ve gotten all the boygenius songs we’ll ever get, the ep, the record, and the rest, would be more than enough.

<sup>1. You can watch their Tiny Desk Concert or their Live on KEXP performance if you’d like a little snippet of what they all sounded like 5+ years ago.↩
2. Watch their SNL performance from November, backed by their all-girl band, to see how this plays out across “Not Strong Enough.” Baker taking the “Always an angel, never a god” bridge to its full climax is awe inspiring.↩
3. The band released an additional EP in October, called the rest. It featured four slower songs recorded during the sessions for the record. “The Voyager” from the rest is particularly great, featuring additional writing from Conor Oberst.↩</sup>

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2. First Two Pages of Frankenstein / Laugh Track by The National
3. Strange Disciple by Nation of Language
4. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek
5. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
6. Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road
7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#2 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — The National

First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track by The National

The National are back near the top of the Top 31, surprising no one. Unbelievably, it’s been four years since they released their last album, the fantastic I Am Easy To Find, in 2019 (#6 that year). Granted, a lot of non-music stuff happened in those ensuing years (remember Covid?). Additionally, a lot of tangential work to The National came out during this period of “down time”: Taylor Swift’s Aaron Dessner-produced albums folklore and evermore came out in 2020 (#4 that year); lead singer Matt Berninger released his solo album, Serpentine Prison, that same year (#8); Aaron Dessner’s not-a-band-but-more-a-“project” collaboration with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver called Big Red Machine released How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? in 2021 (#2)¹ 2022 was the only year in that four-year span that lacked music to fill the massive void left by having no new album by the National.

The band has made up for that time by releasing two great new albums in 2023, First Two Page of Frankenstein on April 28, and Laugh Track on September 18. These two albums more than make up for “lost” time. The band prepared us fans for Frankenstein by putting out four singles between January 18 and the album’s release three months later. Laugh Track, on the other hand, was a complete surprise (aside from the inclusion of Bon Iver collaboration, “Weird Goodbyes,” which was originally released in August 2022).

The National have been long-time staples here on the Bacon Review. Including the albums mentioned above, they’ve always produced music that has been in my Top 10: Sleep Well Beast was #4 in 2017, Trouble Will Find Me was #2 in 2013, and High Violet inadvertently prevented all future albums from defaulting into the top spot by being #1 in 2010.

Where Easy To Find was a true departure for the band, seeing Berlinger relinquish the lead-singer role to a bevy of female guest stars on a number of songs, Frankenstein and Laugh Track are a return to form, quintessential National albums. There are some repeat guest stars here (the aforementioned Justin Vernon, and Sufjan Stevens), and some new great ones as well. Phoebe Bridgers sings beautiful harmonies on three songs across the two albums. Rosanne Cash shows up on “Crumble” from Laugh Track. And by far the biggest name, the Taylor Swift, joins Berlinger on the absolutely perfect duet called “The Alcott” on Frankenstein. After having spent a long time singing the Vernon/Swift duet “Exile” from her album folklore, I am glad my 6-year-old daughter and I have a Berninger/Swift duet to sink our teeth into for Car Karaoke²

Check out the video above, for “Your Mind is Not Your Friend,” one of the songs Phoebe Bridgers is on. The band have released a number of other nice music videos from the two albums, but this one, directed by Bridgers’ brother Jackson, really gets to the heart of what makes the band special. Over National-trademarked Sad Dad lyrics about trying to pull yourself out of depression, Matt Berninger and his brother Tom cavort around comically. Tom shows the depressive side of Matt’s lyrics literally, moping around and being sad, and Matt portrays the happy side of his brain, with flowers attached to his suit as he leads Tom around a park playground. Bridgers makes a brief appearance, appearing in the playground to take her character’s baby away from the grown men playing on the structures. That’s The National to a tee: cathartic depression. And that’s why I love them.

You can watch the rest of the videos they’ve released, too:

• “Eucalyptus”
• “Dreaming”
• “Laugh Track” featuring Phoebe Bridgers
• “Alphabet City”
• “Deep End (Paul’s in Pieces)”
• “Space Invader”

These are The National’s ninth and tenth albums in 24 years. It is now officially impossible to say any one of those albums is their best, as the answer will shift from day to day. No other band in my lifetime has been able to put out as much consistently great music as these five men have. Every new album they put out, I feel “whelp, this must be it, no way they can keep up this pace,” and every time I’m proven wrong. Who knows what’s next for the band? Whatever it is, it will be amazing.

<sup>1. Dessner produced Ed Sheeran’s 2023 album, _–_ (otherwise known as “Subtract”), which I’m listening to for the first time as I’m writing these words – too late to include in the Top 31, and too early to say if I would have even tried to include it. If it’s anything like his collaboration with Taylor Swift, I’ll have made a huge mistake not hearing it earlier. (Update – still listening, but struggling. In Swift’s Dessner-produced albums, there’s an easily recognizable Dessner influence. Despite him having touched every song on Sheeran’s album, Ed’s voice and lyrics pull things far enough away from anything related to The National that I lose the thread entirely.)↩
2. If you want a real thrill as a parent, sing fantastic songs as a duet with them on repeat while driving around town. Rarely can I get through “The Alcott” with my daughter without choking up.↩</sup>

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3. Strange Disciple by Nation of Language
4. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek
5. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
6. Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road
7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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All albums in their entirety

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The best song pulled from each album

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View all previous years’ Top 31s

#3 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Nation of Language

Strange Disciple by Nation of Language

“I’m dubious they can continue in this same direction without bringing something new to their sound” is how I ended my review of Nation of Language’s 2nd album, A Way Forward (at #4 in 2021). Not only have they continued in the same direction as that great album, they’ve somehow managed to surpass its greatness, all while staying true to their synth pop gods. Strange Disciple, the trio from Brooklyn’s third album, is their best yet.

They first announced the album back in April, along with the first track, the unbelievably catchy “Weak in Your Light.” For the next five months they slow-rolled three more fantastic songs, bringing my excitement for the full album to a fever pitch by the time it came out on September 15. It was very much worth the wait.

In a way, the band hasn’t changed all that much since their 2020 album, Introduction, Presence (#15 in 2020. Those 10 songs mix well with the 10 songs on A Way Forward and the 10 songs on Strange Disciple, making for one hell of a >2 hour block of songs (Introduction is 43 minutes long, and Forward and Disciple are both 44 minutes each. The band is the definition of “consistent”). If you listened to either of their past albums, then this new album will feel like you discovered an entirely new wing on your home behind a bookcase, complete with neon-colored, gorgeously-decorated spaces and a dance floor.

Check out the amazing video for their song “Too Much, Enough” above. Directed by Robert Kolodny (director of Netflix’s The Featherweight), it features Jimmi Simpson (from Always Sunny and Westworld) and a slew of other actors and musicians (Reggie Watts, Kevin Morby (#3 in 2022), Tomberlin, Adam Green from The Moldy Peaches, LVL UP’s Greg Rutkin) all acting like members of a local news production while lip syncing to the song. It’s absurdist qualities align well to those of the song, which is “a song born out of an exhaustion with the 24 hour news cycle and the outrage bait it uses to get everyone permanently wound up,” according to the statement the band issued when the video came out. They’ve released two other videos from the album, for “Sightseer” and “Sole Obsession.”

Nation of Language are just hitting their stride. I fully expect their next album to be #1 on the Top 31 — they’ve proven their formula works, it’s expandable, and I absolutely love it.

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4. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek
5. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
6. Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road
7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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Full Albums
All albums in their entirety

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View all previous years’ Top 31s

#4 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Caroline Polachek

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek

Every year for the past few years the Bacon Top 31 family has latched onto a single dance/pop-driven woman-led artist that has carried us through the year. Last year it was Beyoncé, the year before that, Japanese Breakfast, Sylvan Esso in 2020, 2019: Lizzo, 2018 had three, with Chvrches and Janelle Monáe and Christine and the Queens all in the Top 10. 2023 was no different. Caroline Polachek’s unbelievably good Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is the Bacon Review’s most-loved pop album of 2023.

Caroline Polachek has been around the music scene for quite some time, but only in the last 4 years or so has she started to see the kind of attention her presence deserves. You may remember her from her ’00s and ’10s band Chairlift, whose biggest hit was in 2009 (“Bruises,” which you may recognize thanks to its repeated refrain “I tried to do hand stands for you.” Just watch that video and see a mid-20s Polachek doing her thing). While remaining in Chairlift, Polachek released her first solo album, Arcadia, under the pseudonym “Ramona Lisa.” Chairlift released their final album in 2016 and broke up after their final tour in 2017, but not before Polachek had released her second solo album, Drawing the Target Around the Arrow, this time under her initials, CEP, while also appearing on other artist’s work, such as Charlie XCX.

But it wasn’t until 2019’s Pang, released finally under her full, given name, where Polachek started to find her real niche. I haven’t listened to Pang, yet, but my sources (aka: online music sites and wikipedia) tell me it was “well-received” and “critically acclaimed.” My first recognition of the “Caroline Polachek” version of Polachek came in 2021, shortly after she released the single “Bunny is a Rider.” It’s a fast-paced, ear-worm of a song, and if you watch the video you’ll hear why I instantly fell in love with it. Throughout 2022 she released a handful of additional singles: “Billions,” “Sunset” (featured above), and “Welcome to My Island.” By the time Desire, I Want to Turn Into You was released on Valentine’s Day, 2023, thanks to those early-released singles I’d already played a third of the album on repeat for the better part of a year.

“Sunset” is the standout for me. Flamenco-inspired, the song features an auto-tuned Polachek singing an otherworldly, wordless chorus. The song came out just two weeks before Season 2 of one of my favorite shows, White Lotus, came out on October 30, 2022. I don’t remember which I heard first: “Sunset” or the theme song to the show, but the two songs will forever be entwined in my brain. Listen for yourself (the video for “Sunset,” above, and the theme song to White Lotus Season 2), and I dare you to not feel the two songs were both made by some alien intelligence trying to seduce us.

A lot of the songs on the album put some affectation on Polachek’s voice that may make you think she couldn’t possibly produce the range on her own. Thankfully, we have her Tiny Desk Concert from October 2023 to prove us otherwise. She has the range and the talent — the affectation played into the album is there merely for added affect.

Despite her age (38) and the length of time she’s spent in the industry, there’s still some subtle awkwardness in how she moves in her videos. Watch the only other video she’s released from the album, for her song “Smoke,” and maybe you can see it, too. That extremely-subtle-but-still-there uncomfortableness in dancing for the camera reminds me of Taylor Swift. No matter how big or comfortable with they get with being in the spotlight, there’s something endearing about that little bit of “I’m just a regular person like you.”

Polachek may very well just be getting started with Desire. But after a nearly 20-year career in the music business, this could very well be the mountaintop that she chooses to exit the spotlight from, going out very much on top. That would be ok, too. She has proven to be a chameleon, capable of multitudes, and I am here for it.

__________________________________________

5. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
6. Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road
7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

Subscribe to the Top 31 playlists!

Full Albums
All albums in their entirety

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The best song pulled from each album

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View all previous years’ Top 31s

#5 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation and The Silver Cord by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Without doing any actual research, I would assume that more often than not, a band’s debut album is where most of us start listening to a band. A debut album often takes years to make, the culmination of songs written and crafted with long-time school friends into a cohesive whole. But maybe you missed their first record, or they hadn’t found their groove yet, so it’s their sophomore record that really hooked you. There are some stellar third albums out there that have gotten me hooked – Radiohead’s OK Computer comes to mind. But never, and I mean never has it taken until a band’s 24th and 25th album for me to finally notice them. But King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are anything but typical.

I’ve known of King Gizzard for a long time, mostly thanks to a couple of good friends who have continually tried to convince me that this crazy group of Australians who are saddled with the somewhat negative label “jam band” are actually good. Pete and Ryan — I hereby declare that you were right. I’m sorry to have ever doubted you. Hailing from Melbourne, the band is made up of six multi-instrumentalists: Stu Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Joey Walker, Cook Craig, Lucas Harwood, and Michael Cavanagh, all of whom sing in addition to playing too many different instruments to name.

The band has only been around since 2010 and they released their first album in 2012. 24 albums in the following 11 years and it’s clear they are in desperate need of an editor. They are a jam band unlike any other. The genres listed on their wikipedia page are quite varied: psych rock, garage rock, prog rock, and heavy metal, just to name a few.

Let’s look at the two stellar albums they’ve released this year. PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation is a heavy metal album “about humankind, and it’s about planet Earth, but it’s also about witches and dragons, and shit,” according to Mackenzie. This is the album that finally hooked me. The song “Gila Monster,” shown in the video above, is the best song from the album, but it is a head-banging, prog-rock masterpiece that would feel at home in any Tool fan’s collection. The Silver Cord, a true “double album” — with a standard version that runs 28 minutes and an extended version that has longer versions of the same seven songs runs 88 minutes. That’s nearly two hours of music, not that I’m counting. But where PetroDragonic Apocalypse has multiple guitars blaring at every turn, the electropop album The Silver Cord doesn’t have a single guitar on it. This album feels much more like an Animal Collective record. Much like Taylor Swift and her Swifties, the band loves to plant easter eggs and other puzzles within their music, creating a running thread of conspiracy theories and lore throughout their fandom. These two albums are no different – despite sounding wholly different, they are meant to be complementary, a yin and yang. The extended version songs on Cord feature direct callbacks to songs from Apocalypse.

I love a band that is clearly having the most fun doing what they do. Watch the video above for “Gila Monster,” or the other two videos they’ve released from these two albums, for “Dragon” and a three-song “Theia/The Silver Cord/Set,” and you’ll see how ridiculous they can be. They’re very over the top, and everybody knows it. But when you produce fantastic music, people are willing to accept a large amount of ridiculousness from your orbit (again, much like Taylor Swift).

What really sold me on the band was getting to experience them live in late spring 2023. The repeated listenings of Apocalypse and some choice records from their discography in the buildup to the show; the buzz of the fans before, during and after the show despite the torrential downpour for most of it, and even the unexpected early cutoff that clearly angered the band (speakers were cut at 9pm sharp – I guess the band missed that part of the contract when they signed up to play at a farm not accustomed to entertaining thousands of blissed-out showgoers) – all of it culminated in one of the most memorable show-going experiences I’ve ever had.

I get to see them at the Gorge later this year, in late September, where in the past I’ve experienced thunderstorms and extreme winds, blistering heat and bitter cold – who knows what is in store? But I know it’s going to be amazing, and I just can’t wait.

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6. Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road
7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

Subscribe to the Top 31 playlists!

Full Albums
All albums in their entirety

• Apple Music Full Album Playlist
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• YouTube Music Full Album Playlist

Radio Station
The best song pulled from each album

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View all previous years’ Top 31s

#6 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Black Country, New Road

Live at Bush Hall by Black Country, New Road

In last year’s review of Black Country, New Road’s amazing sophomore album, Ants From Up There (#11 in 2022), I shared that their deep-voiced lead singer, Isaac Wood, had left the band due to mental health reasons just four days before the release of the album. The band’s future was summarily thrown into the unknown. How does a band move on from something as impossibly disruptive as losing their lead voice?

Well, I couldn’t be happier to report that they’ve gone and done the impossible. BC,NR, from Cambridgeshire, England, went from a seven-piece ensemble with one lead singer to a six-piece group with four alternating leads, to magical effect. Shortly after Wood’s departure, the band had regrouped but knew their road to recovery wasn’t straightforward. Tyler Hyde, bassist for the band and de facto lead, shared that the band's next release might not take the form of a studio album, saying at the time, “I know it's not going to be an album in its normal form. It would be cool to work with an orchestra; it would be cool to do a film score. These are just some of the ideas we're bouncing around at the moment.” Just under a year later, the band took the natural next step: they put together three separate experience-driven performances at Bush Hall in West London, filmed them from multiple angles (including fans in the audience who had been tasked as part of the AV Club), edited those performances together into one cohesive whole, and then released the result as a film and subsequent album, the amazing Live at Bush Hall.

I don’t usually feature live albums in the Top 31, because live albums, no matter how nicely produced, tend to be mere “best of” collections of songs. The songs on Live at Bush Hall are all entirely new for BC,NR, written and performed live in the aftermath from Wood’s departure. In the span of 8 months in 2022, the band worked out the full set that would make up the three performances, with none of their earlier work with Wood being featured. In fact, the band has said they will never perform songs from their first two albums, out of respect for Wood, but should he feel strong enough to make a return to the stage, they would welcome the opportunity to do so.

The six piece are an eclectic mix, not unlike former indie darlings Arcade Fire. Tyler Hyde (bass), May Kershaw (keyboards), and Lewis Evans (horns and woodwinds) all take turns singing lead on two or more songs. And Charlie Wayne (drums), Georgia Ellery (violin), and Luke Mark (guitar) all lend their voice in harmony and background throughout the album.

When watching the film (linked above), you get a little insight into the three themes they chose for the performances. As reviewed in NME back in February, each performance “has its own unique theme, for which the band (under the collective pseudonym Hubert Dalcrosse) penned a brief synopsis for a different fictional theatrical performance. They are, respectively, “When The Whistle Thins,” about a council of Somerset farmers’ quarterly harvest summit, “I Ain’t Alfredo No Ghosts,” about a beloved pizza chef’s encounter with a poltergeist, and “The Taming Of The School,” a 1980s prom-themed caper. Each performance involved DIY art and stagecraft set, costumes and face paint, and, at least in the case of the pizza story, what appears to be a complete dining experience with actual pizza served. There is no attempt to make these three performances feel like one single performance in the film, by design. This is a collection of the best of the bunch from all three, and presented as such.

Having only heard Ants, but knowing Wood was no longer in the band, I had the immense pleasure of seeing BC,NR perform in the afternoon sun on the main stage at THING 2023. I didn’t know a single song (as I hadn’t known what had gone into Bush Hall and the stellar performance album that came from it), but I left feeling elated. Watch my personal recording of the band’s gobsmackingly lovely performance of “Turbines/Pigs,” led by pianist Kershaw. You can sense a real hush fall on the crowd – 95% not sure what we’re in for – as the song starts, and we all stand in rapt attention for 9 minutes of pure emotion. I saw more than one person crying at the end of it, no joke.

I cannot wait to see where BC,NR go next. Something tells me they won’t simply record these songs in a sterile studio environment. I expect the next record to be a full, studio-recorded album of new songs. Or maybe they’ve found their groove as a live-only band, and that’s what will form their next recorded work. One things for sure, they’re nowhere near “done.” They’ve faced a kind of adversity that bands never come back from, and they weathered the storm. I’ll be waiting here with bated breath for whatever comes next.

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7. Volcano by Jungle
8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#7 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Jungle

Volcano by Jungle

I had no expectation that when I first heard Jungle in 2018 (For Ever, #28 in 2018) that they’d have the staying power to not only kick out another, even better album (Loving in Stereo, #15 last year), but they still had another notch on the dial to turn to. Volcano, Jungle’s fourth album, is by far their best yet. They keep growing, keep surprising the listener.

Jungle are two London-based producers, Josh Lloyd-Watson (“J”), and Tom McFarland (“T”), backed by a sea of singers and musicians who are in turn backed by a sea of fans who can’t possibly sit still while Jungle are playing music. Since their first self-titled album in 2014, the band has been making the most consistently good dance music out there. Volcano was released two days shy of a year after their previous album — by far the fastest the band has ever written, recorded, and released a record. They actually wrote the album while touring for the previous album. It’s exciting to think when I saw the band perform as one of the headliners at Thing in 2022, they were busy writing an even better album in the in-between times.

In addition to releasing phenomenal music, the band tends to create videos heavy with choreographed groups of dancers performing feats no normal human should be capable of. For Volcano, J & T teamed up with choreographer Shay Latukolan to create a video for each song from the albumL: Volcano – A Motion Picture. The videos string together to show the 50-minute broadcast of a local television station (which has J & T in the broadcast booth, naturally) showing different formations of dance and rhythm and loose storytelling. The songs are each single, long takes, with 18 dancers playing off each other and moving with the camera. Nothing is ever resting or standing still, and it’s all so closely orchestrated. It’s mesmerizing. Dancers Will West and Mette Linturi most often take the leads in the short stories shown in each video, but the other 16 dancers are every bit as good as they are. The amount of work that must have gone into planning, rehearsing, (dancers and stage production) and then filming these one-long-take videos is mind-blowing.

I’ve said it before, and I guess I’ll keep saying it well into the future: Jungle makes you move. Watch the video above, for the great song “Back on 74,” or better yet, just watch the full movie, and dance along.

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8. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#8 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Sufjan Stevens

Javelin by Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens has led many musical lifetimes in his 48 years on this earth. He released his debut album when he was just under 25 years old, in 2000. His third album, 2003’s Michigan, was the first of his that I heard, and it established Stevens as a talented singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist (he played no less than 18 different instruments on the album). It was his sixth album, Illinois, that saw his fame rise to the highest of highs. The album was recognized as “best of the decade” by a number of publications (and I generally concur). Those six albums constitute his first “lifetime,” creating lush, Spector-like arrangements on top of his hushed falsetto singing songs about inanimate objects, geographic locations, and even serial killers — rarely turning the lens inward on himself.

The next ten years produced only one album, The Age of Adz, which came in at #3 in 2010. This album is his second “lifetime,” creating what I believe is his best record, but one that is confrontational, noise-laden, and rich to extravagance. It also marked a distinct shift in subject matter in his lyrics, where he chose to focus inward, blatantly focusing on his emotions and health concerns (he’d been suffering through a mysterious debilitating viral infection that affected his nervous system and caused chronic pain).

Carrie & Lowell, his seventh album, came out in 2015 (#4). It started yet another chapter in his musical progression, staying focused inward on deeply personal subjects such as the death of his mother Carrie and his relationship with her husband, Stevens’ stepfather Lowell Brams. Stevens attributes a lot of his love of music and musicianship to Brams, who came into his life when he was young. Carrie & Lowell, laden with quiet, whispered vocals throughout, is a complete departure from Adz. Rather than pushing you away from the speaker with loud noise-driven over-layered music, Lowell forces you to lean in closely.

The next five albums, a series of extended collaborations, contemplative orchestration, and less evocative lyrics, form the fourth chapter: Planetarium (with Nico Muhly, the National’s Bryce Dessner and James McAlister) (#30 in 2017), Aporia (with Lowell Brams) in 2020, The Ascension (#9) in 2020, Convocations in 2021, and A Beginner’s Mind (with Angelo de Augustine) (#29) in 2021.

And now, two years after that, we find Sufjans writing a new masterpiece, learning from the many chapters of his musical history, and forming way may become known as his best yet, with Javelin. Lyrically and musically, the album picks the best parts of The Age of Adz and Carrie & Lowell and creates something wholly new. Stevens dedicated the album to “the light of my life, my beloved partner and best friend Evans Richardson, who passed away in April.”

A month prior to album release, Stevens announced on Instagram that he had been hospitalized for a debilitating illness called Guillain–Barré syndrome, a fast-moving autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the peripheral nerves. Stevens “woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. My hands, arms and legs were numb and tingling and I had no strength, no feeling, no mobility.” Stevens was sent home to continue his recovery on the day Javelin was released.

While not directly about these events, Javelin feels like Stevens’ most intimate album. Aside from backing vocals provided by others on most tracks, and longtime friend and collaborator Bryce Dessner’s guitar on track 9, lovingly called “Shit Talk,” Stevens performed every instrument, and recorded and mixed every song in his home studio. At times quiet like Lowell, and others bombastic like Adz, I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this may be the best manifestation of Stevens’ talent. It’s a testament to the number of great albums from 2023 that pushes this phenomenal work down to #8.

No matter what level of fan or non-fan of Sufjan Stevens’ work you’ve been in the past, Javelin is for you. It’s the best place to start a new obsession, or to put the cherry on the top of one you’ve already been building (like me).

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9. The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski
10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#9 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Mitski

The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski

Mitsuki Miyawaki, aka Mitski, had an eventful 18 months after the release of her sixth album, Lauren Hell. She had her first chart topper, when her song “The Only Heartbreaker” from that seminal 2022 album hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Songs chart in March 2022. She continued to struggle internally with everything that comes from being famous. She co-wrote a song with David Byrne (#15 in 2012) and Son Lux (#17 in 2013) for the soundtrack to the best movie of 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once. She got nominated for an Academy Award for said song. She chose not to perform the song during the ceremony, likely related to the previously mentioned inner turmoil related to being potentially even more famous¹. She and Byrne and Son Lux did not win an Oscar for said song, despite the movie taking home nine other academy awards. And she found the time to record her best album yet, her seventh, called The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We.

Miyawaki’s voice and tone remain unchanged on the new album, but everything around it has been beefed up. Subdued are the electronic-pop intonations of Hell, replaced by the warm embrace of a Mitski-led 17-person choir, along with a full orchestra conducted by none other than Drew Erickson, who arranged the big band feel of Father John Misty’s Chloë and the Next 20th Century (#9 last year) and the fantastic strings in Weyes Blood’s And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, (also last year, at #25). This album has a majesty unlike anything Mitski’s done before. Check out the choir, as featured in the video above, for the song “Bug Like an Angel.” The only other song she’s released a video for from this album is “My Love Mine All Mine,” a shorter, non-choral song reminiscent of a number of Father John Misty’s recent songs.

On my past two reviews of Mitski’s albums, Lauren Hell at (#18 last year), and her fourth album, Puberty 2 at #24 in 2016,² I’ve written a lot about how it’s taken me a long time to understand Mitski. “Understand” is probably not the right word – I can feel like I know where she’s coming from with her songs and what she puts out in the world, but I can’t really say I know her, let along “understand” her. But my brain has finally caught up to her music. She was so far out ahead of me, I couldn’t see her past the horizon. I’m still behind her now, but I’m no longer losing ground. Here’s to hoping she comes through town when I’m available to see her in all her gory. In the mean time, I’ll keep Inhospitable on repeat.

<sup>1. Stephanie Hsu, the young actress who performed in the movie and was nominated for an academy award as well, performed in Mitski’s stead.↩
2. I’ll never be able to forgive myself for being so disconnected as to not even put her genre-defining fifth album, Be The Cowboy, in the Top 31 of 2018.↩</sup>

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10. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray
11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#10 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Fever Ray

Radical Romantics by Fever Ray

Welcome to the Top 10 albums of 2023. This is where things really get fun for me, thinking about the albums from the year that I had the most trouble putting down, and what they mean to me and place they occupy in my life.

Fever Ray is the moniker under which Karin Dreijer – half of the groundbreaking electronic duo The Knife – performs, and seeing them appear here in 2023 should not be any surprise. The Knife’s Shaking the Habitual was #29 back in 2013, and both of Dreijer’s earlier Fever Ray releases have appeared on the Top 31 (#18 in 2009 and #21 in 2017). I am always picking up what they’re laying down.

Dreijer, and their nom de plume, Fever Ray, are unlike anything else I currently listen to. In my younger, gothier days I’d cycle through The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie, and the like, and while all of those bands had a particular look to them – liked to wear dark makeup and do funny things with their hair – I would never have said any of them were “in costume.” My days-away from 50-year-old wants to call Fever Ray “goth,” but there’s something more to it. Dreijer and their Fever Ray bandmates are 100% “in costume,” all the time. On the cover to their phenomenal third album, Radical Romantics, Dreijer has a bald cap on, a ringed mane of long thin white hair, and elaborate makeup that would make them a shoe-in for the Ghost of Christmas Past in a revival of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Radical Romantics is Dreijer’s best album since The Knife’s Silent Shout, which came out back in 2006 (better than the two previous Fever Ray albums, and way better than The Knife’s final album, Shaking the Habitual, from 2013). The additional help Dreijer brought onto Romantics likely has something to do with it. In addition to roping in their brother Olof (aka the other half of The Knife) for four songs, Fever Ray also collaborated with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Oscar-winning and Grammy-winning duo behind the soundtracks to 2010’s The Social Network and 2013’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (that’s not to mention Reznor’s other gig) on two songs. You can watch videos for both of those Reznor / Ross songs. The first is featured above, called “Even it Out,” and even shows Reznor and Ross performing within. There are some definite Reznor-like sounds flowing through the song. The other is “North,” a more subdued affair, with similar production to the duo’s soundtrack work. Obviously, Dreijer’s work without the help is great, too (the albums wouldn’t appear here on the Top 31 if I didn’t think so). But when 60% of the songs on the album are essentially The Knife songs or tangential Nine Inch Nails songs, there really is no comparison.

You can watch a couple other videos the band has released from the album: “Kandy” and my favorite track from the album, the opener, “What They Call Us.”

I had the immense pleasure of seeing Fever Ray perform live in November, and it was everything I want out of a live show. Theatrics, costumes, dance routines and throbbing bass make for one hell of an experience. Just last week Fever Ray released a live performance video created for ARTE.tv (“the European Culture Channel”) concert series “Passengers,” called Les Hauts Fourneaux d'Uckange (in English, The Blast Furnaces of Uckange) — an hour-long, extremely well-produced film showing the band perform in an abandoned factory in northern France. I encourage you to watch the performance, as it is nearly 1:1 of what I saw back in November, right down to Dreijer’s deathly makeup, their David-Byrne inspired big suit, and the light-up cloud headpiece worn by the keyboardist. Watching them perform, you’ll start to understand what is so magical about Dreijer and the band.

Radical Romantics is eerie, intense, brooding, and it seeps into every one of your orifices like a thick fog. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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11. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers
12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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#11 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Young Fathers

Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers

Here we are on the bubble of the Top 10 of 2023 with Young Fathers, who were in this exact same position with their phenomenal Cocoa Sugar a short five years ago. Heavy Heavy is the band’s fourth full-length, and it’s every bit as good as Cocoa Sugar.

Not much has changed with the band in the space between these two albums. They still hail from Edinburgh, Scotland, and they are still a trio of men who have now been making music together for 15 years: Alloysious Massaquoi (born in Liberia, moved to Edinburgh when he was 4), Kayus Bankole (born in Edinburgh to Nigerian parents) and Graham 'G' Hastings (born in Edinburgh to Scottish parents). Having been writing and performing together since they were teenagers, the three men dance and spar and finish each other’s musical thoughts like brothers. Watch their KEXP Live Performance from earlier this year to see how they play off each other – the first three songs of the short set see each of them take the lead at various points.

Heavy Heavy is only a short 33 minutes long, with 10 get-in-get-out 3-minute tracks. It’s heavenly. Whereas Cocoa Sugar saw the band adopting more pop-song qualities that allowed them to secure a wider audience, Heavy Heavy has them maturing those same ideas into the best they can be. The song “I Saw,” shown above, achieves a sound somewhere between TV on the Radio and Prodigy. The other video they’ve released, for the song “Tell Somebody,” is an odd choice for a video. It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but the song feels more like a transition, and bridge between the highlights of the album, “Drum” (song #3) and “Geronimo” (song #5).

When I first heard Young Fathers, I wasn’t sure where they should be stored in my musical file cabinet. Over these last two albums, they’ve shifting up to the front of the drawer that features political rock, hip hop, and hard hitting dance artists. (No such drawer exists – maybe that’s the metaphor I should be painting here: they’ve been moved to a musical drawer all their own). Even if you only kinda liked Cocoa Sugar, I urge you to listen to Heavy Heavy. It contains a half-hour of danceable, singable, catchy as all get-out music that you’ll want to repeat again and again.

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12. Blondshell by Blondshell
13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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View all previous years’ Top 31s

#12 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Blondshell

Blondshell by Blondshell

I love getting in on a new band on the ground floor and watching them rise to the top. 26-year-old Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum, otherwise known as Blondshell, is a great example of this experience. I saw her and her band open for Porridge Radio (#12 last year) at the tiny 200-person venue Barboza in September 2022. At the time, she had released exactly three songs (“Olympus,” “Kiss City,” and “Sepsis” – the latter of which is featured in the video above). Three months later, she was signing a record contract with Partisan Records, home of recent Bacon Top 31 faves Fontaines D.C. (#20 in 2022, #12 in 2020, and #26 in 2019) and IDLES (#24 in 2020 and #16 in 2018) among many others. And now, a year later, she’s released a superb, Obama-approved self-titled debut.

Prior to 2020, Teitelbaum performed under the name BAUM, and had a distinctly different musical personality. BAUM’s music was more centrally Pop with a capital P, and she had a minor viral hit with a song called “Fuckboy.” Listening to that song now, while a little catchy, it unsurprisingly sounds immature and hollow. As COVID started to settle in in early 2020 she made the switch to Blondshell (a name she and her sister came up with over dinner one night). After a couple years of rumination and deep thinking, the first Blondshell song to be released, “Olympus,” came out in June 2022. Over the next year, the magic appears to have taken over as she assembled what became the debut album.

Blondshell has clear linear ties to similar sources as Indigo de Souza did, but Teitelbaum feels more singularly Courtney Barnett, a Bacon Top 31 fave (#5 in 2021, #8 in 2018, and #5 in 2015), and further back into 90s rock, like Hole or the Cranberries. When I saw her perform back in 2022 she played a cover to Built to Spill’s “Carry the Zero,” which came out in 1999. Being a huge BTS stan, of course this had some positive influence on me, personally. You can watch her “KEXP Live Performance” to see her and the band in action, or watch the handful of additional videos she’s released from the album:

• “Salad”
• “Joiner
• “Veronica Mars”
• “Street Rat”

We’re getting into the portion of the Top 31 where every artist becomes a must-listen. There’s no “give this a try,” it’s all very much “stop what you’re doing right now and listen.” And that’s where I‘ll end this review. Do it. Now.

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13. All of This Will End by Indigo De Souza
14. My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons
15. Sundial by Noname
16. 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
17. For That Beautiful Feeling by The Chemical Brothers
18. ÁTTA by Sigur Rós
19. Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas
20. The Art of Forgetting by Caroline Rose
21. Bewilderment by Pale Jay
22. The Window by Ratboys
23. Action Adventure by DJ Shadow
24. Let’s Start Here. by Lil Yachty
25. Pollen by Tennis
26. Greg Mendez by Greg Mendez
27. Teenage Sequence by Teenage Sequence
28. everything is alive by Slowdive
29. My Soft Machine by Arlo Parks
30. I/O by Peter Gabriel
31. Los Angeles by Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst

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All albums in their entirety

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The best song pulled from each album

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• Spotify Radio Playlist
• YouTube Music Radio Playlist

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