The thing is that a lot of the artists on the two critics lists linked to in the OP don’t really get a whole lot of radio play, unless maybe you’re listening to college radio, or shows like Sound Opinions. Of the eight artists Solost said he had heard of that were mentioned on the lists, only Beyonce, Carly Rae Jepson, The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar get much play on mainstream radio.
Anyway, I took a gander at the NPR list. Other than Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce and Angel Olson, I honestly can’t say I’ve heard of any of the artists mentioned.
To be fair, the NPR list encompasses a ton of different genres, most of which I don’t listen to… so I’ve only heard of 12 on that list. On the AV club list, I’ve heard of 20, and I’ve frequently listened to about half of those.
Yeah, they’re all pretty tight numbers on that album. “Angelica” I like most probably because, especially live, it had that shoegaze/psychedelic wash of sound going for it, and I’m a sucker for that.
But that was speculation at the time. Just like it’s speculation now. I expect when your job is listening to A LOT of news music, you’d naturally start to prefer stuff that sound different and is not heard everywhere. There’s probably a bit of snob appeal, but I kind of doubt that’s a big part of it.
But there’s so much good music being made nowadays, that you’d have to be a critic to be aware of a lot of it. The splintering of music culture doesn’t help either. I’ll bet a typical millennial or zoomer won’t have a high batting average for these lists either. It’s the nature of the music business nowadays. (Although, if you’ve never hear of Kendrick Lamar, you might be a fogey.)
I listened to “Chaise Lounge” after the mentions of knowing Wet Leg here. Seems like some fun music to listen to; kind of has a bit of novelty act quality to it though, so I don’t know how many repeat listens I’d want to give it.
Then today I’m listening to the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast. His podcast sidekicks Sona and Matt are making fun of him for being out of touch with popular music, and he says “not true! I was just listening to Wet Leg the other day”.
Yeah, some of the songs do have a bit of trying to be a little too cutesy and clever feel to it, but it is a solid album of fun songs. It’s like an 8/10 for me. I’m curious to see if their subject matter and/or music matures a bit for their next album. The musicians they have behind them are pretty damned tight – I was quite impressed by the rhythm section when I saw them.
Oh now, if that song knows anything, it knows repetition.
On the chaise lounge, on the chaise lounge, on the chaise lounge, all day long, on the chaise lounge.
Seriously, I can’t get enough of it.
And when I hear a Wet Leg song I haven’t heard before, I can recognize them before the vocals start by how that bass player handles that Fender Mustang bass. Love his tone.
I often listen to NPRs “All Songs Considered” and they have a rotating roster of co- hosts that all specialize in different areas and genres, from rap to indie to classical and everything in-between, if you listened regularly I bet the top album/song list would be more familiar.
I also listened to Pitchfork Reviews episodes for the year end and was pretty unfamiliar, but I also just started listening. And Switched On Pop focused on the Latin and Brazilian wave of artists that were big this year.
Not recognizing a list has to do a lot with the ease of finding and listening to new and smaller artists and the continuing crumbling of any monoculture. I took a look at KEXPs (local independent radio station) year end list of 90.3 best albums of the year, and I recognize most of that list, but it’s already what I listen to.
KEXP has the best live performances on YouTube, much better than the Tiny Desk Concerts in my opinion. I hadn’t thought to actually listen to the station, but I’ll give streaming it a try.
Know & Listen: Wet Leg, Angel Olson
Know by Name: Kendrick Lamar, MUNA, Beyonce, Bad Bunny
That’s fine; I still have lots of music I listen to and find new songs I like on a regular basis. There’s some goofy toy called the Spotify Iceberg that ranks your listened artists by popularity tier and most of my stuff is underwater (or well in the depths) so I’m not surprised that I’m not super familiar with the top ranked stuff.
We listened to a good hunk of the NPR list yesterday. We conclude it sounds like NPR, which isn’t a bad thing, but not the most exciting artists I’ve found via NPR (like Sonia Dada, Susheela Raman, and Dengue Fever). Thematically, we noticed a lot of songs by POC singers were pragmatic, forward-looking, and powerful, while many by white singers were defeated, incompetent, and whiny. Not going to go through them systematically, but we both noticed this.
Don’t know most of them (15%?), but it’s not the most representative source. A quick Spotify perusal suggests (in my opinion), maybe 20% seem pretty good or quite interesting. I didn’t hear much that I thought would be considered a classic fifty years from now, that is, nothing really brilliant. The Guardian had a better list. Probably the music magazines (RS, mixmag, pitchfork, NME, billboard, etc.) do too. Since I just did a quick survey I could be mistaken. Please tell me if there is something there you think is amaaaaaaazingly good.
The Guardian is still releasing its list, but 50 through 6 have been good. And I’m glad to see Big Thief has made everyone’s list so far, the new album certainly deserves it.
Music is extremely subjective, so this is strictly my own opinion: I think Mitski, whose latest album “Laurel Hell” appears on several of those lists, is fantastic.
So I’m trying to expand my musical horizons a bit with recs from this thread. I gave the entire eponymous Wet Leg album a listen, and honestly it just didn’t do a lot for me. I tried the new Big Thief album “Dragon New Warm Mountain I believe In You” and couldn’t get past the first song ‘Change’. I’ll try ‘Laurel Hell’ by Mitski next.
It’s not like I’m a complete old fogey stuck in the mid-to-late 20th Century when it comes to music. I was listening to a lot of Royal Blood a while back, and when it comes to softer stuff I really like Fleet Foxes (though they’re not exactly ‘new music’ anymore).
Yeah, I do think genres have shifted away from a lot of late 20th century music. It will be interesting to hear what you think of Mitski, I have that album as well, and it definitely has an 80s vibe.
Big Thief does have a song from a different album, the song is called “Shark Smile”, that might as well be a Springsteen song except for a little discordance in the middle. That might be worth a try.