#14 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Lorde

January 18, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Virgin by Lorde

It’s been 12 years (and two non-charting albums) since we saw Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, aka Lorde, grace us with her presence on the Top 31. With Virgin, her fourth LP, the 29-year-old singer/songwriter has given us what I would call her best album yet.

Lorde has been through quite a bit since her 2013 debut, Pure Heroine, was at #28 that year. After the success of that platinum-selling, #3 in the US album, her sophomore album, the Jack Antonoff-co-produced Melodrama, full of synths and beats made for moving your body, went all the way to #1. Her third album, Solar Power, also co-produced by Antonoff, abandoned the beats for acoustic indie pop, and consequently fared the worst, “only” charting at #5 in the US.

In the years that ensued after Solar Power, which came out in 2021, Lorde had a bit of an identity crisis. She set out and succeeded in overcoming the crippling stage fright she’d been experiencing up to that point, but then turned that critical eye towards her weight in an unhealthy way, which she sang about on a Charli xcx track that was released as part of the Brat remix project called Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, on a song called “Girl, so confusing,” released summer 2024. “And scared to be in your pictures / ‘Cause for the last couple years / I’ve been at war with my body / I tried to starve myself thinner / And then I gained all the weight back.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone released around the time Virgin was released, Lorde spoke of how her healing from the stage fright involved MDMA and psilocybin therapy (successfully). But she was not only treating that and the eating disorder. She was also reconciling a life (between the ages of 13 and 27) of relying on (and sometimes dating) boys and men significantly older than her, and the inherent power-dynamic problems that creates. Ultimately, Virgin is the outcome of that personal growth. Not only does she now feel she’s got a grip on her life, but she’s better understanding what it means to be Lorde — who she is, what she needs, and what life will look like going forward as a near-30-year-old megastar.

As part of this new understanding, gender identity has come to the fore. The Lorde we see in the videos from this new album still exude the overt sex appeal that comes with being a pop icon, the shift in how she represents herself has become less girly-girl femme all the time, in her words more “masc.” Take a look at the video for opening track “Hammer” (featured above). Lorde seductively lies in the grass in a bikini and suspended in a warehouse completely naked while singing about the themes for the rest of the album. “I burn, and I sing, and I scheme, and I dance. Some days, I’m a woman, some days, I’m a man.”

She goes even harder on the gender fluidity on “Man of the Year,” a video where she duct tapes her chest flat and sings “Gliding through / Like new from my recent ego death” and “Take my knife and I cut the cord / My babe can‘t believe I‘ve become someone else / Someone more like myself / Who’s got’ love me like this? … Let’s hear it for the man of the year.” There’s a definite masculinity rooted in her psyche that has finally started to show itself, and she wants the world to know it.

Musically, there’s a good reason this album hits different. On Virgin, Lorde parted ways with Jack Antonoff and the acoustic folkiness of her last record. Instead, she co-wrote and co-produced the album with producer Jim-E Stack, who also happens to have co-written and co-produced Top 31 favorite Bon Iver’s¹ latest, the amazing SABLE, fABLE. Together, they brought the Melodrama beats back, too. Check out “What Was That”, a dancey, get-your-body moving song about the fallout from the aforementioned relationships with unnamed older men.

I’ve loved Lorde’s sultry delivery since her debut, and I’m glad she’s coming out of her third decade on Earth stronger, more self-aware, and in control of her situation. We’re all better off for it, and I can’t wait to hear what she does in her 30s.

^{1. All of Bon Iver’s albums that have come out in the duration have been featured on the Top 31 since I started it in 2009: #17 in 2009, #6 in 2011, #1 in 2016, and #9 in 2019. And that’s not to mention lead singer Justin Vernon’s other collaborations that have been on the Top 31, such as Big Red Machine and his work with Taylor Swift.↩}

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#16 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Florence + the Machine

January 16, 2026 by Royal Stuart in 2025, Top 31

Everybody Scream by Florence + the Machine

In the immortal words of our Queen Bey, who run the world? Girls do, of course. And despite my best efforts to try and ignore the artist at #16, Florence Welch and her band The Machine have been in the ruling class for the better part of two decades. It took six albums, but I’m finally here to pay homage to one of the greats.

Florence + the Machine have been making music since 2007. Of the eight musicians in the band, four of them (Florence Welch – the primary songwriter of the band – on lead vocals, Isabella Summers on keyboards, Robert Ackroyd on lead guitar, and Tom Monger on harp) have been together for all 19 of those years. The other four (Cyrus Bayandor on bass, Aku Orraca-Tetteh on percussion, Dionne Douglas on violin, and Loren Humphrey on drums) joined the band in 2018.

The band released their debut album, Lungs, in 2009, which went to #1 in the UK and Poland, and #14 in the US, selling over 3 million copies globally on the strength of singles “Kiss With a Fist” and “Dog Days Are Over.” They were also given the British Album of the Year award that year at the Brit Awards. All worthy accolades. The band released four albums over the next 12 years, landing at #1 or 2 in the UK and within the top 10 each year in the US – amazing feats. And I still didn’t pay close attention.

In the time between their fifth album, Dance Fever, in 2022 and this latest in 2025, Welch made a high-profile guest appearance on what I would call the best song on Taylor Swift’s (#29 this year, and #4 in 2020) lackluster 2024 album Tortured Poets Department, “Florida!!!.” She even performed its anthemic, triple-exclamation-point worthy chorus on stage with Swift at Wembley Stadium during an October 2024 stop on the Eras Tour.¹ Because I live with a couple of Swifties, this meant for a brief time Florence’s voice could be heard throughout my house.

One of the main drivers of The Bacon Review early on was to share music videos. As a child of the 80s, and a designer by trade, I have a deep affinity for the visual forms that music can take. And that is how this album, Everybody Scream, Florence’s sixth, found its way to the front of my playlists in 2025: through a video. I stumbled across the video for “One of the Greats” (featured above), and was enthralled. It features Florence, 39, in the back of an old whale of a car, white leather and polished wood finishes. She’s wearing wayfarers, a black velvet suit jacket over a white button-down, and holding an unlit cigarette, giving a strong Patti Smith vibe, as if she’s on her way home from the shoot for the cover of Smith’s 1975 album Horses. The car is moving forward, with remnants of a recent rain splashed on the windows, and streetlights moving slowly by, while Florence lip syncs to the lyrics. The song is over six minutes long, and the video is done all in one take, locked on Florence and her flowing red mane.

The song is a slow burn that builds, not to a towering crescendo like a lot of F+tM’s songs do, but to a mild cacophony that disintegrates into madness at the end. Welch performed the song once in the studio, with IDLES (#16 in 2024) guitarist Mark Bowen taking lead guitar, performing alongside her during that one take. The song also features guitar and production from Aaron Dessner (he of The National and Big Red Machine, who has been featured on the Top 31 so many times I should probably try running for president of the Aaron Dessner fanclub). The song won me over instantly – the entire package: the video, Florence, Bowen and Dessner.

The video itself was directed by Autumn de Wilde, whose work I’ve been loving for a long while (check out her video for “Once In My Life,” the Decemberists song for their #14 in 2018 album I’ll Be Your Girl). Unbeknownst to me, De Wilde has had a long partnership with F+tM, having directed five videos for the band from their previous two albums.²

That partnership carried into Everybody Scream, starting with a great little teaser called “Bury a Scream” that was released a couple months prior to the album release. Then came the title song, “Everybody Scream.” That, and “Buckle” both feature Top 31 regular Mitski (#9 in 2023, #18 in 2022, and #24 in 2016) on backing vocals. “Sympathy Magic” rounds out the videos de Wilde has made for this album, and goes so far as to feature Welch naked at the beginning of the video (meaning, it’s mildly NSFW).

Bowen and Dessner combine with Welch to take production credits for the entire album. So, what I like about the songs in the videos above stretches across the entire length of the album. “Drink Deep,” is particularly good, with Welch’s drawn out vibrato, evokes another powerful female voice: Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, from This Mortal Coil’s cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.” Fraser is one of many voices with whom you can call Welch’s ancestry. You’ll hear odes to Janis, Stevie, Tori, PJ, Fiona, and Sharon throughout.

Who doesn’t love a great and powerful female lead? Don’t let this album slip past you – it’s a swift kick in the gut mixed with the unsettling warmth of a house fire. I’m now a committed Florence + the Machine stan, and I can’t wait to hear what they do next.

^{1. Welch also sang drowned-out background harmonies on The Weeknd’s “Reflections Laughing,” from his 2025 album Hurry Up Tomorrow, which also featured rapper Travis Scott. It’s such a minimal appearance, it barely begs mentioning at all.↩}
^{2. De Wilde directed “Big God” from 2018’s High as Hope, and “King,” “Heaven is Free,” “My Love,” and “Free from 2022’s Dance Fever. That last one, “Free,” is fun, starring Bill Nighy alongside Welch as her anxiety come to life.↩}

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#6 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Sharon Van Etten

January 26, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten

It’s been three years since we last heard from Sharon Van Etten on the Top 31. Her fifth album, a tour de force called Remind Me Tomorrow, was #5 in 2019. Five years prior to that, the fantastic Are We There was #4 in 2014. Go back two more years and you’ll find her third album, the Aaron Dessner-produced Tramp, at #13 in 2012. And now with her sixth album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, is here at #6.

With four albums in the Top 31 over the last 12 years, she is the most decorated woman on the Top 31, a fantastic achievement by any measure, but a somewhat dubious and shameful honor for me personally. Van Etten’s first two albums, Because I Was in Love, and epic, both came out in 2009 and 2010, just as the Bacon Review was getting started, and my head was in a different space then. In my review of Tomorrow I wrote “In the beginning, the Top 31 was a lot more subconsciously, and therefore outwardly, male-centric.” What an understatement. Out of the 31 artists featured in the Top 31 in 2009, only five bands with female singers made the list. 2010 had three, if I stretch a little and qualify Belle & Sebastian. 2011: two. One year like that, it’s an anomaly. Two, it’s an interesting bit of problematic trivia. But three (and I stopped counting there; it’s likely even more years than that) and it’s a pandemic of aural blindness.

Last year, the number had gotten up 13. More respectable, but still not quite half. By the time this year’s Top 31 is done, I’ll have charted 19 albums that feature lead singers that are women. I didn’t enact some level of overt corrective measure, or create some artificial level or number that had to be filled by woman-led bands. I just charted what I truly loved this year. There has a been a definitive, quantifiable shift in my taste in music over the last 14 years. I don’t deserve notoriety for this achievement, but that won’t stop me from feeling a little bit better about my own personal balance.

At this point, the quality of Van Etten’s output is so great, it’ll be a surprise if she ever produces something that doesn’t fall into the Top 10. In the three-year void between Tomorrow and All Wrong, her 2nd album, 2010’s Epic, hit its 10th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Van Etten released a new deluxe version of the album (naturally called epic Ten) that included a track-for-track remake by various artists, including Bacon Review stalwarts Big Red Machine (#13 in 2018 and #2 in 2021), Idles (#16 in 2018 and #24 in 2020), Courtney Barnett (#5 in 2015, #8 in 2018, and #5 in 2021) and Fiona Apple (#1 in 2012 and #2 in 2020). When your career affords you the ability to gather Bon Iver, Courtney Barnett, and Fiona Apple to cover your own songs and release it as a bonus to your own reissued album, you know you’ve made an impact on people. My love of her music is well documented, but clearly there is no question as to her greatness.

In addition to my personal favorite from the album, “Mistakes,” shown in the video above, Van Etten has released a number of videos of songs from the album:

“Headspace”
“Used To It”
“Porta” (which also has a “making of”)

Get your hands on We've Been Going About This All Wrong. It is stellar, start to finish. Even if you’ve not connected with her music to date, give this one a full chance to sink in. You will not be disappointed.

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7. SOS by SZA
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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#2 on the 2021 Bacon Top 31 — Big Red Machine

January 30, 2022 by Royal Stuart

How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? by Big Red Machine

Every year there’s the big obvious acts that continually appear on the Top 31. At the top of that list are both The National and Bon Iver, both of whom have had #1 albums (2010 and 2016) along with three additional, separate appearances on the Top 31 each. In fact, I haven’t done the math, but I’m confident in saying that Aaron Dessner (20% of The National) and Justin Vernon (99% of Bon Iver), combined, have been responsible for the largest percentage of all music I’ve listened to in the last 15 years.

The two of them have done many things together, arguably the most prominent being the work they’ve done together as Big Red Machine. Their first foray into a partnership was a collaborative song called “Big Red Machine” on the Dessner-produced Dark Was the Night compilation in 2009 (#10 that inaugural Top 31 year). According to wikipedia, Dessner reached out to Vernon via MySpace, and they collaborated on the song remotely, and didn’t meet in person until a follow-on performance for the collaboration was hosted later that year. They continued to work together while producing and creating with their respective bands. They formed a record label, 37d03d, which released the first full Big Red Machine album in 2018 (self-titled, #13 that year). In addition to Dessner and Vernon, that album also features Phoebe Bridgers, Dessner’s brother Bryce and Bryan Devendorf from The National, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Parry from Arcade Fire, among many others.

Then they turned their attention to Taylor Swift, or many she turned her attention to them. The two albums that came out of their collaboration had a big impact on my 2020 Top 31, coming in collectively at #4 last year. But Swift is not the only Dessner/Vernon produced artist I’ve enjoyed. From the very first Top 31 in 2009, with the aforementioned Dark Was the Night compilation and Bon Iver’s Blood Bank EP, there have been only two years (2014 and 2015) that one or both Vernon and Dessner did not appear on the Top 31 as performer or producer. Sharon van Etten, Local Natives, Frightened Rabbit, Taylor Swift, Kanye West — they’ve all benefited from the magic touch of Aaron Dessner and/or Justin Vernon in the last 15 years.

There were also a couple of Big Red Machine singles to come out in 2020 that haven’t appeared on any albums: “No Time For Love Like Now” with Michael Stipe, and a get-out-the-vote in Wisconsin cover of Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up” featuring 4 of out 5 members of The National and others.

And now we’re finally up to the present, with How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?, the supergroup’s 2nd full-length album under the Big Red Machine name. The album features a daunting list of guest appearances: Taylor Swift on two songs, James Krivchenia of Big Thief, Anaïs Mitchell on three songs, Ilsey (a prolific singer/songwriter who has written for and sung with a dizzying number of artists you’ve heard of), Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, Naeem (otherwise known as rapper Spank Rock), a song called “Hutch,” dedicated to the lost-too-soon lead singer of Frightened Rabbit, Scott Hutchison, featuring Sharon van Etten, Lisa Hannigan, and Shara Nova (lead singer of My Brightest Diamond), La Force (aka Ariel Engle of Broken Social Scene), Ben Howard, and This is the Kit (Kate Stables).

Whew.

There are many highlights to this album (as there should be for a #2 album of the year). The Robin Pecknold / Anaïs Mitchell sung “Phoenix,” shown in the lyric video above, is my personal favorite (mostly because it’s the favorite of 4-year-old, who demanded I play that song over and over again throughout the summer of 2021). But even the most stripped down songs, such as the two where Aaron Dessner finally takes the spotlight all by himself, playing guitar and singing on “The Ghost of Cincinnati” and “Magnolia” in what can only be described as his best Elliott Smith impersonation. The Taylor Swift collaboration “Renegade” is a poppy, Swiftian jaunt you’ll love – it could have easily been created for Swift’s 2020 albums folklore or evermore.

It’s hard not to look at How Long as the capper of one hell of a musical decade for Dessner and Vernon. There’s no way that either of them is done making music. But if you look at the arc of U2, R.E.M., or The Stones, now is about the time in their respective careers that the drive to create something new and different clashes with the desire to slow down, spend more time with family, and rely heavily on the income from previous hits rather than create something new and earth shattering. Selfishly, I hope they choose a different path and continue to give us everything they’ve got. We’ll find out soon enough – 2022 is a new year, and maybe there’ll be another Bon Iver or National album, or some new Dessner- or Vernon-produced project that will simply blow us all away. I can’t wait.

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3. Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast
4. A Way Forward by Nation of Language
5. Things Take Time, Take Time by Courtney Barnett
6. Little Oblivions by Julien Baker
7. Valentine by Snail Mail
8. sketchy. by tUnE-yArDs
9. A Very Lonely Solstice by Fleet Foxes
10. Hey What by Low
11. Local Valley by José González
12. Head of Roses by Flock of Dimes
13. The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows by Damon Albarn
14. Collapsed in Sunbeams by Arlo Parks
15. Loving In Stereo by Jungle
16. Flying Dream 1 by Elbow
17. Screen Violence by Chvrches
18. Blue Weekend by Wolf Alice
19. Mainly Gestalt Pornography by Pearly Gate Music
20. Peace Or Love by Kings of Convenience
21. These 13 by Jimbo Mathus & Andrew Bird
22. Mr. Corman: Season 1 by Nathan Johnson
23. Home Video by Lucy Dacus
24. I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico by Various Artists
25. Siamese Dream by Fruit Bats
26. NINE by Sault
27. Observatory by Aeon Station
28. The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania by Damien Jurado
29. A Beginner’s Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine
30. Where the End Begins by Knathan Ryan
31. Private Space by Durand Jones & The Indications

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#13 on the 2018 Bacon Top 31 — Big Red Machine

January 19, 2019 by Royal Stuart

2018 came and went without another #1 album by The National or Bon Iver, but it did produce something almost as good: the best “The National collaborates with another group” collaboration album yet. Introducing Big Red Machine, the self-titled debut album from Justin Vernon (aka Mr. Bon Iver) and Aaron Dessner (lead music writer for The National).

It’s almost as if Vernon and Dessner sat down and said “let’s make a Radiohead album.” Blending digital artifacts and hypnotic beats, subtle orchestration and keyboards, and an affected falsetto floating over the top, this is the best Radiohead album the band never made. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bon Iver and The National, and I love what Vernon and Dessner have done together. I’m pretty sure this album was made just for me. At times quiet and wispy, it draws you in like only the best novel can. Then, suddenly, it’s punctuated by staccato rhythms and nonsensical lyrics that cause you to sit up straight in your chair.

Dessner and Vernon’s collaboration started during the making of Dark Was The Night, the amazing Red Hot compilation album that the Dessner brothers assembled back in 2009 (#10 that year), when Dessner apparently cold-messaged Vernon on MySpace, having never met before. The two artists met for the first time at the Radio City Music Hall event surrounding the Dark Was The Night album (and featured in the video on the link of that #10 album in 2009). It took them nine years and collaborating in many ways on many things (including starting a project called PEOPLE, from which this album is by far the biggest output to date).

Yes, the project is named after the 1970’s Cincinnati Reds teams that won the World Series four times in seven years. The Dessner brothers grew up in Cincinnati, and were born right smack dab in the middle of that run (1976). If you even remotely like Bon Iver or the National, or Radiohead for that matter, then you’ll like this album. Perhaps you’ve not heard of it; thankfully your drought is now over.

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14. I’ll Be Your Girl by The Decemberists
15. The More I Sleep the Less I Dream by We Were Promised Jetpacks
16. Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES
17. Hell-On by Neko Case
18. Superorganism by Superorganism
19. Living in Extraordinary Times by James
20. Thank You for Today by Death Cab for Cutie
21. Black Panther: The Album by Kendrick Lamar
22. Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) by Thom Yorke
23. Merrie Land by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
24. Room 25 by Noname
25. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
26. God's Favorite Customer by Father John Misty
27. Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
28. For Ever by Jungle
29. Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz
30. Remain in Light by Angélique Kidjo
31. This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet by Moonface

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