Like I was saying: It was a great year for records. My list of annotated favorites includes several titles I’d qualify as masterpieces, and plenty more that come close enough. 

The just-the-facts version, expanded to a full top 50, is as follows, along with a few additional loose ends. I’ll be back in 2020 with some best-of-decade reflections, then on to new albums!

Thanks as ever to all of you who join me on these adventures in listening. I do not take for granted the gifts of your time and attention, and remain hopeful that I’ve honored them by turning you on to something good.

50 Favorite Albums from 2019

1. The Gospel According to Water| Joe Henry
2. Ghosteen | Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
3. LEGACY! LEGACY! | Jamila Woods
4. Lover | Taylor Swift
5. there is no Other | Rhiannon Giddens
6. Wildcard | Miranda Lambert
7. Breakdown on 20th Ave. South | Buddy & Julie Miller
8. Father of the Bride | Vampire Weekend
9. My Finest Work Yet | Andrew Bird
10. Songs of Our Native Daughters | Our Native Daughters
11. Love and Revelation | Over the Rhine
12. Patty Griffin | Patty Griffin
13. Silences | Adia Victoria
14. Blood | Allison Moorer
15. Open Book | Kalie Shorr
16. The Center Won’t Hold | Sleater-Kinney
17. Western Stars | Bruce Springsteen
18. Amidst the Chaos | Sara Bareilles
19. Canterbury Girls | Lily & Madeleine
20. Absolute Zero | Bruce Hornsby
21. Crushing | Julia Jacklin
22. Cash Cabin Sessions Vol. 3 | Todd Snider
23. The Highwomen | The Highwomen
24. To Myself | Baby Rose
25. Walk Through Fire | Yola
26. Fever Breaks | Josh Ritter
27. Amadjar | Tinariwen
28. The Hurting Kind | John Paul White
29. Giants of All Sizes | Elbow
30. Jaime | Brittany Howard
31. Internationally Unknown | Rat Boy
32. TEXAS | Rodney Crowell
33. Let’s Rock | The Black Keys
34. Love and Liberation | Jazzmeia Horn
35. On the Line | Jenny Lewis
36. Aventurine | Linda May Han Oh
37. By Blood | Shovels & Rope
38. Two Hands | Big Thief
39. Magdalene | FKA twigs
40. What it Is | Hayes Carll
41. Diatom Ribbons | Kris Davis
42. Love Hurts | Julian Lage
43. i,i | Bon Iver
44. Sunshine Rock | Bob Mould
45. Hurts 2B Human | P!nk
46. Anthropocosmic Nest | The Messthetics
47. Crowing Ignites | Bruce Cockburn
48. While I’m Livin’ | Tanya Tucker
49. 2019 | Lucy Dacus
50. Finding Gabriel | Brad Mehldau

Disappointments

I don’t especially enjoy dismembering anyone else’s creative output, but in the interest of candor, I’ll take a moment to register just a few albums that left me cold this year, by artists I typically enjoy. As ever, your mileage may vary.

The Big Day | Chance the Rapper
The Black Album | Weezer
The Teal Album | Weezer
Jesus is King | Kanye West
Sound and Fury | Sturgill Simpson

I have half a mind to include Willie Nelson’s Ride Me Back Home on this short list, a largely pleasant and agreeable album that falls just a bit short of recent standouts like Last Man Standing and My Way. And, I’ll confess to enjoying Maren Morris’ GIRL quite a bit less than I enjoyed HERO, though between her role in The Highwomen and her uproarious duet with Miranda Lambert, she is still one of this year’s MVPs. (And, “The Bones” is an excellent single.)

Re-Issues and Older Music

A commitment to new releases means that it’s sometimes difficult finding time for re-issues. One of my hopes for the holiday break is to catch up with some of the lavish reappraisals of classics like Abbey Road and The Band. The one re-issue that I can vouch for here is the 25th Anniversary edition of R.E.M.’s Monster, which dials back some of the guitar effects in favor of greater crispness and clarity. It remains a singularly moving document of a band that’s hurting, and trying anything and everything not to be fully seen.

A Year Ago

These end-of-year lists are always intended to be snapshots, and it would be foolish for me to assume my rankings would ever remain static or unmoving. Looking back at last year’s list, I can safely say that I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for any of my selections. I will note that it took me a few months to catch up with Universal Beings, from the great drummer and bandleader Makaya McCraven, which provides an immersive set of grooves and textures even as it persuasively bridges the gap between jazz performance and hip-hop production. It probably would have made my top 10, had I only heard it in time. An album that did make my top 10 is Love in Wartime, by the mighty Birds of Chicago, yet in hindsight I still think I underrated it: I have returned to its durable humanity and hopefulness again and again this year, and found it to be deeply nourishing each time.