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| The Flaming Lips, American Head: Admittedly, I’m a good two years late to the party in terms of American Head, the Flaming Lips album from 2020 that dominated my life for a few months this year. I heard it playing in a used record store and the trippy lament “Dinosaurs on the Mountain” served as the potent contact high that had me craving more. It turns out to be a masterful album exploring various dissolutions of the American dream through songs bathed in expressive lyricism while their protagonists rob drug stores, slog through dead-end jobs at slaughterhouses or while away afternoons at the local cinema blasted on Quaaludes. Not exactly a party album, but it’s an American beauty. —Tom Huizenga, NPR Classical
Galcher Lustwerk, 100% Galcher: One day as I was scouring the internet for upcoming releases, I saw that Galcher Lustwerk’s 2013 DJ mix 100% Galcher was set to be released as a remastered double LP this December. Although I’d heard a couple songs from Lustwerk’s extensive discography, I had never sat down and properly listened to any of his albums straight through. Where better to start than his breakthrough mixtape? I found a version of his original 100% Galcher mix — originally released on the now-defunct website Blowing Up the Workshop — on SoundCloud and pressed play. I don’t know if it was his mysterious deep vocals or atmospheric and meditative production, but the mix (released quietly on the internet almost 10 years ago!) put me in a hell of a trance — one that I didn’t want to snap out of. It’s nice being able to listen to something without having the option to skip or shuffle through songs, and 100% Galcher is definitely a set you should let play all the way through. —Teresa Xie, intern
Butter 08, “9MM”: In my most irritable moods this year (and there were many, unfortunately) I found myself turning to the new-to-me song "9MM," the opening track of the funky and freaky one-off, self-titled album from the band Butter 08 — a short-lived '90s supergroup of sorts featuring Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto and, somehow, director Mike Mills, to name a few. A song for those moments where you feel like your head might explode. —Hazel Cills, editor
Paul McCartney, “Hope of Deliverance”: Initially, this little early-’90s ditty sounds very low-gravity: Jimmy Buffet hand-drums jovially bop around as McCartney, constitutionally compelled as always, swishes around the theme of love. But the transition from verse to chorus then cuts to the quick of our existence, with a smile in a single line: “We live in hope / of deliverance / from the darkness that surrounds us.” Absolutely brutal, Paul. — Andrew Flanagan, music news editor
Jamila Woods, “Fast Car”: For a long time, “Fast Car” has been the answer I’ve kept locked and ready for anyone who wonders aloud if the perfect song exists. Songs like Tracy Chapman’s signature hit invite the flattery of cover artists but resist too much interpretive license, the contours of the original so worn in collective memory that most attempts to stray trip our uncanny valley alarm. The wonder of Jamila Woods’ 2021 update, then, is how much it changes without adding anything — the burbling production instead tracing subliminal outlines around the original’s iconic riff, the vocal performance tuned to just the right ratio of presence and deference. Woods sounds so sure-footed here, and she should: She’s done the impossible. —Daoud Tyler-Ameen, editor
Shania Twain, Come On Over: This was my diva year, particularly of the Pacific Northwest (Heart), Trinidadian (Calypso Rose) and Québécois (Céline Dion) varietals. But it was a used CD copy of Shania Twain's Come On Over, found at a thrift store, that took me by surprise. Every song is a belt-from-the-driver's-seat banger or ballad, driven by a pop-country glamor worthy of red carpets, but with enough 'tude to rock honky-tonk jukeboxes. I mean, how are "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", "From This Moment On," "You're Still the One" and "That Don't Impress Me Much" all on the same album?! Goddess-level melodies and vocal performances that reveal something magical upon every listen. —Lars Gotrich, producer
The B-52s: I’ve always been ambiently aware of the biggest hits of The B-52s — who could possibly escape the ubiquity of “Love Shack” or “Rock Lobster”? — but felt inspired to really dig into the band’s catalog this year. I was shocked at how much wilder and more fun the band’s early records are than I had expected: kitschy, hooky, strange, avant-garde, danceable — a total delight. When I told my colleague Lars about my listening adventures, he sent me a live video of the band from 1980 and I was blown away, especially by the performance of “Give Me Back My Man,” from The B-52’s 1980 album Wild Planet. I kept the track on repeat for the rest of the year. — Marissa Lorusso, associate editor
Jesucristo Superstar cast recording: As a recovering theater major, I really and truly and begrudgingly love musicals in translation. They inspire a special kind of madness: oddly clunky lyrics, words inexplicitly left untranslated, the chance appearance of Donna Summer in the original German cast of Haare. So I'm not quite sure how I missed the 1975 Spanish cast recording of Jesucristo Superstar for so many years. With Spanish pop icon Camilo Sesto in the lead, the musical keeps all the longing and dread I love in Andrew Lloyd Webber's original and punctuates it with a stunning number of synthesizers and the rather silly cries of "Jesucristo... superstar." It is perhaps the ideal listening experience, and "Everything's Alright" / "Todo Estará en Paz" still makes me cry. — Fi O’Reilly, news assistant |
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