#12 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Tyler, The Creator

January 20, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

At the end of 2023, many music-related news outlets started declaring that hip-hop was dying or perhaps even dead. The genre had experienced a major surge throughout the 2010s, so great that it beat out rock-n-roll to become the #1 listened-to genre in music in 2018. It’s been able to maintain that ranking every year since, just as streaming music has become the only game in town, but the sizable lead it built up over the other genres has been declining in recent years. The number of chart topping hip-hop songs had dropped significantly while the genre became a reflection of the results of streaming on the whole: there’s less concentration on two or three huge artists while everyone finds and follows their own lane. Popular music on the whole was becoming homogenized.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the end of the story. In 2024, hip-hop saw popularity coalesce around a handful of artists (see Doechii at #18). With that focusing of excitement came the artists driving #1 songs and albums throughout the year, reinvigorating the genre. Tyler Okonma, otherwise known as Tyler, the Creator, was one of this artists that caused the turnaround of events with his phenomenal eighth studio album Chromakopia, coming in at #12.

I’ve been sleeping on Tyler for pretty much his entire career. I mean, I’ve known about him for a long time, but I’ve had very little bandwidth for hip hop on the whole, so I hadn’t paid him much attention. In past years when I’ve latched on to acts like Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020, #28 in 2014), they essentially fulfilled my hip-hop allotment for the year (I’m not proud, it’s just the truth). Not so in 2024 — I listened to more hip hop this year than I have since I first dabbled in the genre as a high school freshman trying to figure out his particular flavor of rebellion by listening to NWA and The Geto Boys in the late 80s.

There’s a few reasons I’ve listened to more hip hop in 2024 than in any previous year, and “the music just got better!” can’t be one of them, no matter how much it may feel like it’s true to me. The simple truth is I seem to have unintentionally allowed hip hop to have a bigger presence in my life. 2024 started with a birthday surprise from my wife, taking me to a listening party centered around Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. (I’d loved his Blonde album, (#4 in 2016) but hadn’t been able to give the earlier album much love, so I re-listened to it a lot in January of 2024.)

Secondarily, the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar leapt over the cultural divide and became a minor obsession for me. There were other smaller beefs (Charlie XCX and Lorde, Tyler and Childish Gambino), but the rift that grew between Drake and Kendrick that began in March of 2024, or back in 2011 depending on where you draw the line, slowly filled every bit of idle time I had, with me reading articles and podcasts (such as the always wonderful Dissect) and other non-music related content. Not only was I listening to more hip hop as a result, I was reading and learning more about it, too.

And likely the biggest reason for there being more hip hop in my life in 2024: my 16-year-old child has found a new love of hip hop, and has been listening to a lot of it recently. Having your teenage child grow into their own musical tastes that are separate from (but hopefully influenced by) your own, and then feeling compelled to talk to you about what they’re finding and listening to — that’s where the magic is. As a proud father who loves music, I’ll fall over backwards to accommodate any music-related ambition from my children. If they love Tyler, the Creator, I’ll be damned if I don’t love Tyler, the Creator, too. If they love Tyler’s past albums, I’ll love those, too (I’m looking at you, IGOR, which is cued up in my earbuds to listen to next).

Thankfully, Tyler is easy to love. Chromakopia is a rich, leaning-forward-into-the-momentum album that is a compelling listen. The number of guest stars on this album is astounding, including Top 31 past favorites Childish Gambino, Thundercat, Doechii, and Inflo, as well as future favorites GloRilla, Lil Wayne, ScHoolboy Q, Santigold, Willow, Daniel Caesar, Sexxy Redd, Teezo Touchdown, and Solange, and at least 20 other people. The production on the album, done by Tyler himself, along with the songwriting and arranging, is all-encompassing.

Hit play on the video above, for the song “NOID,” and you’ll get a taste of what I mean. The song, autobiographically concerned with the paranoia Tyler feels as his fame grows ironically larger, prominently features a sample of the Nambian band Ngozi Family’s song "Nizakupanga Ngozi,” from their 1977 album 45,000 Volts to great effect. Watch closely and you’ll see Ayo Edebiri from FX’s The Bear acting disturbingly psychotic with a gun. “NOID” is my favorite song on the album, so it’s convenient that it’s the only song for which Tyler made a video. “Balloon” featuring Doechii (#18 this year) is my 2nd fave, specifically because of Doechii’s appearance. That girl can do anything.

Nearing the end of the year, on Christmas Day, Tyler released “THAT GUY” – a freestyle remix of “Hey Now” from Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 album GNX, which only itself came out on November 22. Tyler seems to me that he’s mimicking Kendrick’s delivery style on the song. Or maybe my untrained ears are adding something where it’s not needed. Either way, I really like that beat, and Tyler’s verse on top of it is fantastic.

Chromakopia is wonderful. It’s still full of swears, but it’s much less than you’ll find on the Doechii album, if for some reason you found that a bit off-putting in her album. I am looking forward to giving IGOR a chance to ascend my “greatest regrets” list, for having not appeared on the Top 31 of the 2019 list when it really should have. And as for you, if you’ve not heard this new album yet, you know what to do.

Hop to it.

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#7 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — SZA

January 25, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

SOS by SZA

You won’t find the amazing album at #7 on my list on any other Top Albums of 2022 lists, but not because you’ve not heard of it. It’s because it came out on December 9, right when all the prominent music magazines and blogs were already publishing their best-of lists. This album likely won’t appear on any of those lists at the end of 2023, either, because it would be strange to feature an album that came out in 2022 in a Best of 2023 list. It took me a few years of compiling my own Top 31 lists to figure it out: if your album comes out in December, or really even in November, it will be hard or impossible to rank it in any meaningful way. So compilers of lists are left with either making a wild assumption (“I’ve heard this album for a day, it’s definitely better than X number of albums already considered the best this year”), a flat out guess (“Two songs have been released from this album that is supposed to come out in the next week. It will be better than these X albums”), or simply not listing them at all. That’s the only option for any reputable publication.

Or you can do what I do: wait until the year is, you know, complete before ranking the albums from the full year. Or maybe just call your list “The Top 50 albums from the first 11 months of 2022.” Delaying like I do is still not perfect — an artist releases an album on December 30, chances are I’m not going to hear it or be able to include it in my Top 31. I’m not sure what drove the decision to release the long-awaited SZA album on December 9, but I have to believe it was a calculated business decision. So much business is wrapped up in a SZA release, there are lots of players, weighing lots of options, and I suppose making it onto the Best Of lists is not how the money is made. I just checked, and this album has been #1 on the Billboard charts (meaning it has sold more than any other album) for the last five weeks (that’s the last 2 weeks of December, and the first 3 of 2023).

So, clearly people are finding SOS, SZA’s 2nd full-length album, and first since her 2017 debut, Ctrl, despite it not appearing on any end-of-year lists. But at least it’s appearing on my list. I can feel confident in the exceedingly modest number of streams I’ll have been personally responsible for for the megastar. At just over an hour long, this album is jam packed with 23 amazing songs spread across numerous genres, from R&B to hip hop, pop to grunge. Rather than feeling like the work of a single artist, it plays more like a really good Top 40 yet commercial-free radio station, cycling through the hits of the day¹.

SZA, whose full name is Solána Imani Rowe, was born in St. Louis. Despite having only two full length records to her name, she is an international pop sensation who has been making popular music for the last 10+ years. She connected early with the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, and while I’m confident her songwriting prowess and phenomenal voice would have propelled her to stardom eventually, having the door opened by those two can‘t hurt. My first taste of SZA came on the Black Panther soundtrack (#21 in 2018). The duet she sings with Lamar, “All My Stars,” is the best song on that album, in no small part because of the powerful chorus led by SZA. I didn’t listen to Ctrl, although I wish I had.

The best comparison I can make for this SZA release is to Frank Ocean’s Blonde (#4 in 2016). Like SOS, Blonde bounces all over the place, has strange digital artifacts thrown in throughout, and is a fantastic hip hop / R&B-based album. If you loved that album like I do, you will love SOS like I do.

Rumors and announcements about the release of SOS came out as early as 2019. A mix of pandemic buying patterns, production shifts, and a massive outpouring of talent from SZA herself no doubt slowed up the release all the way to nearly missing 2022 entirely. A few singles had been released well before the album came out. “Good Days,” was the first to be released, in 2020, a great song whose video features SZA as a dancing mushroom² (I’m not sure what business decisions forced the single that preceded this one, the great “Hit Different,” was not included on the SOS release.) The next single, “I Hate U,” came out in December 2021, just over a year prior to the release of the album, and with a video starring LaKeith Stanfield. The official version of her song “Shirt,” was released as a single just over a month prior to the album release. The video stars SZA alongside LaKeith Stanfield, in a bloody shoot-em-up video, a la Quentin Tarantino. On January 6, SZA released the single for my favorite song on the album, “Nobody Gets Me,” which is eerily reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” and probably why I like it so much. And finally, SZA released the single for “Kill Bill,” on January 10, 2023. The video is amazing in its ability to recreate key scenes from the pair of movies, recast with SZA in the seminal Uma Thurman role.

My favorite non-single from the album is “Ghost in the Machine,” on which Bacon Review favorite Phoebe Bridgers (#3 in 2020) sings along with SZA. Bridgers and SZA are similar in a couple key aspect: they’re not shy about guest starring on someone else’s song; and they make any song they appear on better. I will (and have) go out of my way to track down “with SZA” or ”…Bridgers” songs, and am continually rewarded for doing so. As long as they keep producing their own songs, I’m all for them spreading the love around.

I’ve written more than enough about this album. If you’re not convinced by now, there’s nothing else I can say that will sway you. Listen to this album, all 67 minutes of it. You’ll see.

^{1. There is exactly one song I cannot stand on the album. I’m such a dedicated fan of the form, I don’t usually single out any one song and say “this is not for me, I’m skipping it.” The song in question is the lone rock pop song, “F2F,” which SZA wrote with Bacon Review favorite Lizzo (#1 in 2019). Check it out for yourself, but you’ve been warned.↩}
^{2. As I write this, we’re two episodes into the great new HBO series The Last of Us, and seeing SZA as a mushroom here gives me entirely different feelings than it would have two weeks ago.↩}

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8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#16 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Kendrick Lamar

January 16, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar

Despite it being called the best album of 2015 by Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, and almost every other popular-music–ranking service, Kendrick Lamar’s How to Pimp a Butterfly barely made the Bacon Top 31, sneaking in at #29 that year. I ended my review of the album saying “I can’t say I love it, and I doubt I’ll listen to it a lot going forward.” Oh how very wrong I was.

What I didn’t understand then was that my taste in music was still maturing, still growing. I wasn’t ready for Kendrick Lamar in 2015, but it laid the groundwork for my love of Frank Ocean’s Blonde, (#4 in 2016). I still couldn’t find the right groove for Lamar’s next album, 2017’s DAMN. which came in at #22 that year, but he opened the door wide with his stellar Black Panther: The Album. My love for the form continued to grow in 2020 with Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020). And that’s how we get to today, with my and Kendrick’s relationship in much better shape.

I listened to Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers more than I have to any other Kendrick Lamar album, and I would have listened even more if it didn’t conflict with my family’s musical tastes. (There has to be a limit somewhere on the amount of cursing I can tolerate around my five year old, right?) The double album, 1 hour and 19 minutes in length, is fantastic. But that doesn’t mean the music is free of difficulty and controversy. For instance, “We Cry Together,” towards the end of the first half, is an abrasive, spoken-word, emotionally violent duet between Lamar and actress Taylour Paige. The couple in the song is arguing angrily, devolving into a yelled chorus: “fuck you n****, nah, fuck you bitch” back and forth. It’s brutal to listen to, but the video (NSFW at the very end) is highly compelling to watch because it is extremely well acted by the two.

Don’t miss the video for “The Heart Part 5” shown above. While Lamar lip-syncs the rap while standing in front of a deep-red background, the one-take video uses deepfake technology from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s studio Deep Voodoo to transform him into six other famous black men: O. J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. The overall effect is mesmerizing. Each verse of the song as sung by the alter egos is written from their perspective, adding an additional meta layer to the song. “Heart” is technically not from Morale, but instead was released just prior to the album coming out as a teaser. It is included here because why the hell not.

There have been other videos from the album released: “N95,” “Rich Spirit,” and “Count Me Out,” (which features Helen Mirren, of all people). Lamar’s video output proves he’s a master of both sound and visuals. He took his myriad talents to the top of the mountain back on on October 1, when he performed three songs from the album on Saturday Night Live. He managed to pull off a feat I don’t know that I’ve seen before on SNL – he made the live performances have an element of music-video-ness to them. See the fantastic shadow-play in “Rich Spirit + N95 - live on SNL,” and watch the walls literally move in on him in “Father Time (feat. Sampha) - live on SNL.”

The steady progression of Lamar-produced albums moving up in the ranks of the Top 31 is more an expression of my changing musical tastes than his changing production. I don’t see myself leaving behind the usual dad-rock and indie-pop albums and artists I enjoy. It just makes for a more diverse list, a wider variety of music to tap into when the mood strikes. It also makes me more excited to hear what comes next.

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17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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A single song selection pulled from each album.

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#0 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Rostam

December 30, 2022 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Changephobia by Rostam

The 2022 Bacon Top 31 will be kicking off in earnest on Sunday, per usual. I’m here a couple days early to correct a year-old mistake. Back in January, midway through the 2021 Top 31, my lovely wife, Anna, began speculating what my top 5 of 2021 would be. She had the benefit of knowing what picks #16–#31 were, because I’d been publishing those picks daily throughout the first half of January. And she had the added benefit of me having pushed all kinds of music on her throughout the year, so she already had a strong feel for what I’d been liking.

She started rattling off a few names that would land near the top the 2021 list. “War on Drugs for sure, and Big Red Machine. Nation of Language…” — the corners of my mouth start to curl up as she goes through her mental musical rolodex — “Fleet Foxes… Rostam? His new one came out this year, didn’t it?” — and my expression shifts immediately, from a smirk to mild panic.

My mind starts racing… Rostam! I haven’t listened to him in a couple months, but damn Changephobia is a great album… Did we start listening to it in 2021 — when did it come out? I quickly bring up Wikipedia: released June 4, 2021. SHIT. Now what do I do? The rest of the Top 31 is already locked in… there’s no way to fit it in without pulling something else out, and I’m certainly not cutting something from my remaining top 15 of the year to make room for a clear Top 10 album.

So I resolve to amending the list. I’ve had to do it once before, back in 2014, after all. Changephobia will just have to be a #0 for 2021, out of the official ranking for the year but every bit as important as the rest of the list. I knew what I needed to do, but then time got away from me, the rest of the year flew by, and here we are on the cusp of the 2022 Top 31, and I’m finally writing about one of the best from 2021.

You may not know who Rostam is, but if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve heard me talk about him before. His full name is Rostam Batmanglij (رستم باتمانقلیچ in his Iranian parent’s native Persian¹), and he has been all over the Bacon Review since it began in 2009:

He was a founding member of Vampire Weekend whose albums hit #6 in 2010 and #3 in 2013. He left the band prior to their fourth album, but he still produced a couple songs on that album, which hit #3 in 2019.
He produced and co-wrote two songs on Hamilton Leithauser’s debut solo album, which hit #11 in 2014.
He wrote one and produced another song on Frank Ocean’s Blonde (#4 in 2016)
Wrote and produced three songs on Francis and the Lights’ debut album (#21 in 2016)
He and Hamilton Leithauser released a joint album that hit #19 in 2016).
and he produced Haim’s Women in Music Pt. III which hit (#19 in 2020

That is no fewer than eight separate Bacon Top 31 albums he’s been an integral part of, and I left his 2nd full-length album off the 2021 list. Ugh, I hate myself². At least I’m making up for it here. Changephobia is a lovely album. I got to see him perform solo for the first time in August 2022, at Neumos. Despite him lacking a full-bodied stage presence (this was his first show post-covid, and he’s not used to owning the spotlight on his own – look at that laundry list of big names he’s propped up on his shoulders, above), it was a magical experience.

Changephobia is a great follow-up to his 2017 debut, Half-light, which was my #2 album of 2017. If you’ve not heard either album, I urge you to do so. Hit play on the video above to hear his voice first hand (and don’t miss the who’s who of guest stars in that video: HAIM, Charli XCX, Wallows, Kaia Gerber, Remi Wolf, Nick Robinson, Bryce Willard Smithe, Samantha Urbani, Demi Adejuyigbe, Seth Bogart, Huck Kwong, Ariel Rechtshaid, Matt DiMona, Ghazal Hashemi, Carter Howe, Julian McClanahan, and Chris Paloma all make an appearance in the back of that cab).

If listening to his original music doesn’t cut it, then listen to these two non-album covers he’s done: Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” which I had on repeat all Christmas season this year. The man is a genius, and I can’t wait to hear what he does next.

And that is how we finally wrap up the previous year here on the The Bacon Review. This is a one-person operation over here, desperately needing a systems manager / editor. Until I magically get a budget and an ability to hire, mistakes will continue to be made, but I’ll do everything I can to stop them from happening! In the veritable words of Matthew Wilder, “Ain’t nothing gonna break-a my stride, nobody gonna slow me down, oh no, I got to keep on moving.” See you on Sunday to start up the 2022 Top 31!

^{1. Isn’t that language just beautiful to look at? I love Arabic script, and may someday learn to write a language that uses it just so I can make calligraphy with it.↩}
^{2. The technological reason that led to the omission is just plain dumb: I use a smart playlist in Apple Music to pull together all the albums I download for a given year. The 2021 version had two new rules applied to that playlist that I thought would help me greatly: I told it to exclude anything with “single” or “ep” in the name. Guess what two letters appear next to each other in the word “Changephobia.” Worry not, the 2022 smartlist does not have those rules repeated.↩}

#1 on the 2016 Bacon Top 31

January 12, 2017 by Royal Stuart

22, A Million by Bon Iver

Yep, Bon Iver. Good ol’ Justin Vernon finds himself atop the 2016 Bacon Top 31, with his stellar, jaw dropping third LP 22, A Million. This album is Bon Iver’s Kid A. I remember that feeling, back in 2000 — after having had that magical moment where Radiohead’s OK Computer just *clicked* a couple years prior, and I began defining the musical world as “Radiohead above all else” — and played Kid A for the first time and thought “What the FUCK is this?” Then I listened to it again. And again. And probably didn’t stop for the rest of the year. That’s exactly how it went for this new Bon Iver album.

This is an amazing record. It’s over-the-top use of autotune (as I said when reviewing Blonde at #4, this is The Year of the Autotune) is arresting until you’ve heard the album for the fourth of fifth time and you realize it’s magical.

Vernon has a spot-on falsetto — it’s his signature voice — and of course it’s featured prominently here, run through many layers of digital filters and fuzz, to create something wholly unique. I encourage you to watch this live performance from December (thank you NPR!), to watch Vernon make these sounds on the fly. It’s a marvel to watch, and it blows me away he’s able to accomplish it all live, on stage.

Bon Iver has been on the Top 31 only twice, for his 2nd LP, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, at #6 back in 2011, and his Blood Bank EP at #17 back in the very first Top 31, in 2009. His first album, For Emma, Forever Ago, from 2008, would definitely have been on the countdown. It’s a masterpiece of a different sort. But for me, 22, A Million is his best work to date. I’m going to listen to this album for many many many years to come.

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2. Visions of Us On the Land by Damien Jurado
3. A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead
4. Blonde by Frank Ocean
5. Are You Serious by Andrew Bird
6. Lemonade by Beyoncé
7. Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
8. Goodness by The Hotelier
9. The Mountain Will Fall by DJ Shadow
10. Junun by Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express
11. The Hope Six Demolition Project by PJ Harvey
12. Amen & Goodbye by Yeasayer
13. Sea of Noise by St. Paul & The Broken Bones
14. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
15. Painting Of A Panic Attack by Frightened Rabbit
16. Why Are You OK by Band Of Horses
17. Not To Disappear by Daughter
18. Sunlit Youth by Local Natives
19. I Had a Dream That You Were Mine by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam
20. ★ by David Bowie
21. Farewell, Starlite! by Francis and the Lights
22. This Unruly Mess I’ve Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
23. LNZNDRF by LNZNDRF
24. Puberty 2 by Mitski
25. Light Upon the Lake by Whitney
26. A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise
27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations

#4 on the 2016 Bacon Top 31

January 09, 2017 by Royal Stuart

(video above is NSFW)

Blonde by Frank Ocean

I’m not gonna lie: I like the sound of extreme autotune. So long as it’s being used to push the limits, calling attention to its own “digital-ness,” then I’m all for it. You heard this quite prominently in Francis and the Lights, back at #21 on this year’s Top 31. And here we are all the way up at #4 with another heavily autotuned masterpiece, Frank Ocean’s Blonde.

Like Beyoncé at #6, Frank Ocean is a name I knew but didn’t pay much attention to before 2016. This is only Ocean’s 2nd release, coming out four years after his widely-acclaimed pop debut Channel Orange. I listened to Channel Orange back in 2012, but dismissed it as being way too over-hyped. I’m glad I didn’t give up on Ocean for good, because Blonde kills.

Not to beat a dead horse, but probably for the same reasons I love Beyoncé’s album so much, the endless sea of stellar partnerships makes this album so great. There are a TON of guest artists on this album, from André 3000, to Beyoncé herself, James Blake, Rostam Batmanglij (featured at #19), and even a string arrangement by Jonny Greenwood (featured at #10). I’m pretty sure there are about 80 collaborators / personnel listed on the wikipedia page for this album). You could fill an entire Grammy awards just with the people on it.

But unlike Beyoncé’s album, this is not something for everyone. The song structure is a bit on the bizarre (which is another reason why I like it so much), but when it clicks, it’s fantastic. There are even a couple spoken-word “songs” on it that I skip outright. But I encourage you to give this at least three listens before dismissing it. If you’re like me, it’ll sink it’s claws in well before you finish the third lap, and then you won’t want to stop listening.

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5. Are You Serious by Andrew Bird
6. Lemonade by Beyoncé
7. Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
8. Goodness by The Hotelier
9. The Mountain Will Fall by DJ Shadow
10. Junun by Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express
11. The Hope Six Demolition Project by PJ Harvey
12. Amen & Goodbye by Yeasayer
13. Sea of Noise by St. Paul & The Broken Bones
14. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
15. Painting Of A Panic Attack by Frightened Rabbit
16. Why Are You OK by Band Of Horses
17. Not To Disappear by Daughter
18. Sunlit Youth by Local Natives
19. I Had a Dream That You Were Mine by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam
20. ★ by David Bowie
21. Farewell, Starlite! by Francis and the Lights
22. This Unruly Mess I’ve Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
23. LNZNDRF by LNZNDRF
24. Puberty 2 by Mitski
25. Light Upon the Lake by Whitney
26. A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise
27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations