Music & Films for
Common People
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SEX AND FOOD
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
50
Unknown Mortal Orchestra decides to veer towards rock music, and if not their best album, Sex and Food achieves great moment of pure power rock, either through a critique of American state of the art or as a peculiar love letter to Ruban Nielson's baby daughter.
GOD'S FAVORITE CUSTOMER
Father John Misty
49
If this is the worst of the fourth albums of Josh Tillman, then we must be in front of one of the best lyricists in contemporary music. His fourth album lacks many new ideas, but still keeps the wit in every phrase and keeps constructing the myth of who is Father John Misty.
TEMET
Imarhan
48
Tracing new paths for traditional North-African Tuareg music, Imarhan infuses their new folk sound with traces of psychedelic and surf rock. Urgent guitar riffs are paired with traditional percussions, as they mix the old and new, the East and West.
CLEAN
Soccer Mommy
47
This coming-of-age album feels like the confessions in the diary of a young woman trying to understand how to navigate adulthood. Anyone can relate to the honesty in which she narrates her anxieties, insecurities and failed romantic attempts in solid indie rock tracks.
SONGS OF PRAISE
Shame
46
While the media are trying to sell them as the new redemptive British band that will save rock music, they leave very clear in this album that they are far more concerned in finding a channel for their dirty and angry chants rather than looking for global rock domination.
CONFIDENT MUSIC FOR CONFIDENT PEOPLE
Confidence Man
45
If making good smart pop is difficult, making good silly pop might be even harder. Confidence Man managed to compile a great silly (only on the surface) pop album that never feels basic, repetitive or annoying and that is enjoyable from beginning to end.
DEVOTION
Tirzah
44
Saying that this is a collection of love songs would be accurate but would undersell what Devotion really is. There is such level of intimacy and surprise that one almost feels that Tirzah mastered the representation of the full complexities of real life relationships.
HEAVEN AND EARTH
Kamasi Washington
43
Dividing the album in two parts, one that represents the destructive world as it is, and the other being the utopic dream of the artist, Heaven and Earth balances the influence of the jazz classics with an urge to move the genre forward with new ideas and experimentations.
SOIL
Serpentwithfeet
42
If the emotional depth of his tenor voice that breaks in powerful vibratos was enough merit to give a good listen to this album, Josiah Wise debut LP is brilliant in finding new ways to talk about love, non-traditional ideas flower and give birth to unusually intense emotions.
AGE OF
Oneohtrix Point Never
41
A challenging piece that most of the time is disconcerting and discomforting, the soundtrack of an obscure and cryptic nightmare. Daniel Lopatin crafted a unique work that for every answer gives away twenty new and more complex questions.
AVIARY
Julia Holter
40
Aviary is a delicate and sophisticated record that is detailed in its construction of sonic landscapes that are open and wide, but also entirely intimate. Holter has created a work of entire poetic value and a high level of complex experimentations.
HISTORIAN
Lucy Dacus
39
Historian is album so immersive in the emotional pit of heartbreak that works as the most pure cathartic experience. Dacus is precise and powerful in her use of words, and she knows the exact dose of delivery, from soft murmurs to enraged guitar riffs.
FUTURE ME HATES ME
The Beths
38
With the energy of 90s indie rock and the irony to mock personal anxieties, The Beths' debut album is solid guitars music that is unpretentious in style but extremely clever in its lyrics. Halfway between Fiona Apple and Vampire Weekend, it's a band to follow close.
SINGULARITY
John Hopkins
37
Probably his most dense work to date, Singularity aims to take you on a psychedelic trip of self discoveries. It's that strange type of electronic music, that even at its most intense house moments, looks inwards and touches you intellectually and emotionally.
TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL
Courtney Barnett
36
Even if it's not even close to the grandiosity of her debut, Tell Me How You Really Feel still delivers mordent lyrics that give an insight on the vices of society through pictures of the absurd in everyday's life in the slacker postmo grunge of Barnett.
YOUR QUEEN IS A REPTILE
Sons of Kemet
35
With every track honoring an emblematic black woman, Your Queen is a Reptile is an energetic jazz album that celebrates the rich heritage of black cultures, and furiously exposes the modern colonialism and the hegemonic social and political white supremacy.
HOW TO SOCIALISE & MAKE FRIENDS
Camp Cope
34
Whether the intensity of their direct and clever music is directed towards the sexism in the music industry or the process of grieving, the message of this badass rock band is clear: sorority is the key to face life's hard curves.
HIVE MIND
The Internet
33
A collection of feel-good funky tracks that flows with ease from the first to last song, taking you on a trip through the most sophisticated soul music that is being produced nowadays, at times taking the direction of a sexy party, and at times of personal heartbreak.
GOLDEN HOUR
Kacey Musgraves
32
Be careful not to think of this as a mild happy country record, because in the Trump era full of blind supporters in Middle America, a country singer that is so openly singing from such a strong feminist point could be stronger than any music made for converted liberals.
LUSH
Snail Mail
31
Lindsey Jordan posses a peculiar talent to write about the tempest times that only a teenager can live, but from a perspective and maturity that is beyond her age. Also, her powerful guitar matches the intensity of her lyrics to offer the whole rock experience.
PALO SANTO
Years & Years
30
If in Communion, Olly Alexander was a shy guy trying to find his space in the dancefloor, in Palo Santo he is commanding the entire club with an attitude that demands attention and respect, unapologetically queer and sparkling with raw intensity.
YOU WON'T GET WHAT YOU WANT
Daughters
29
This album is one of the scariest musical experiences we've had in the last few years. And yet, the intense feelings that it evokes aren't as immediate of the ones in a gore bloodbath, but those of a philosophical suffocation that engorges the human being.
HOPE DOWNS
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
28
Hope Downs might not invent nothing, but an indie rock album so straightforward in its structures and powerful in its delivery is quite rare in this point of history that it almost feels a bit foreign and new. Just pure and simple powerful rock music.
ORDINARY CORRUPT HUMAN LOVE
Deafheaven
27
Securing their position as the single band that has made the most interesting advances in metal music in the last decade, Deafheaven expands their horizons once again with a new set of experimentations that broaden their palette without sacrificing emotional intensity.
TRANSANGELIC EXODUS
Ezra Furman
26
With an unapologetic Springsteen influence, Furman takes the roots of blues, country and rock'n'roll to create an energetic sound that defies authority, but as a queer musician, his music is presented as a revolutionary act that transgress cultural identities and ideologies.