My top 10 albums of the year, with standout tracks noted, plus my top 40 songs of the year at the bottom. No song on the Top Songs list appears in the top albums. Included is a link to listen to a full playlist at the end.
Song of the year This year had a lot of songs in the running for my song of the year— from the Jamie XX and Robyn club banger “Life”, to Shannon & The Clams’ spooky garage track “Moon Is in the Wrong Place”, to Suzanna Vega’s return to form “Rats”—but the song that spoke to me the most is Chicagoan Steve Slagg’s “Heaven (Yet)”. It’s a song about hiking, according to his BandCamp page… but when he sings “Honey, there’s a panther in the backyard / One of us should probably learn to kill / Guys like us don’t go to Heaven yet / But I don’t wanna die in Provincetown”, well, I think he’s also singing about inhabiting this word as a gay person, carving out a space for ourselves. Listen on BandCamp
Throughout December,