1Sharon Van Etten
Remind Me Tomorrow
2Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Ghosteen
3Aldous Harding
Designer
4Weyes Blood
Titanic Rising
5American Football
LP 3
6Elbow
Giants Of All Sizes
7Jenny Lewis
On The Line
8Angel Olsen
All Mirrors
9Cate Le Bon
Reward
10Rose Elinor Dougall
A New Illusion
11Lana Del Rey
NFR!
12The National
I Am Easy To Find
13Big Thief
U.F.O.F.
14James Blake
Assume Form
15Jesca Hoop
Stonechild
16Damien Jurado
In The Shape Of A Storm
17Robert Forster
Inferno
18Richard Dawson
2020
19Modern Nature
How To Live
20Jay Som
Anak Ko
21Julia Kent
Temporal
22Deerhunter
Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared
23Chuck Cleaver
Send Aid
24Edwyn Collins
Badbea
25Sleater-Kinney
The Center Won’t Hold
Album of the year was a difficult choice this year. The piece of music I listened to most this year was actually Descending Moonshine Dervishes by Terry Riley (from 1982). A single fifty minute plus piece of ambient drone-heavy organ music. It was my go to listen – particularly at night – for months across spring and summer.
I didn’t really listen in any focused way to this year’s releases until November – before that it was just listening to things on shuffle. I listened to so much music in such a short period of time that it got a little confusing. In the end though the Sharon Van Etten got the nod simply because I like more songs on it than anything else from 2019.
A significant change to my listening this year was caused by the gradual drying up of music worth buying at eMusic. Sadly after fifteen years my membership of the site ended on the last day of 2019 – even on my outrageous grandfathered deal I couldn’t justify it any more. It was a sad ending to an important part of my music listening/buying since 2004. I own more than 16,000 tracks bought from eMusic over my membership – it made a real impact on my music collection and tastes.