After way too much consideration, I finally pared my shortlist of good albums down to a manageable top 10 and then some, a development that would seem to suggest there was a surfeit of great music this year. I’m not going to go out on a limb and state categorically that there was or there wasn’t. As with all things having to do with taste and discernment, my choices had more to do with my own state of mind than with the quality of the product in general. Better critics than I have pointed out that every year the volume of music released increases exponentially and that there’s no way one can hear all of it. But more to the point, modern life is distracting, and I will go out on a limb and state that it’s more distracting than it was when I was younger. For one thing, I listen to much more music on headphones than I used to—or ear buds, if you prefer—and it has an effect. Though I still like loud music and raunchy outpourings of emotion, I think I find greater pleasure now in the intimate detail, regardless of how it’s presented. It could be a function of the way I listen to most music nowadays, but it probably has to do with aging. More than ever I long for the sought connection, because I want to feel seen in my senescence. That love song was written for me, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

1. Patterns in Repeat, Laura Marling (Partisan): The habits of domesticity are presented as eerie comforts in Laura Marling’s new, folkier songs, written after the birth of her daughter and recorded while the baby was apparently there in the room to absorb them. It’s a give-and-take that acknowledges the artist’s first responsibility is to her audience, even if the listener can’t readily comprehend the impulse behind the writing and the singing, which here are distilled to a limpid essence that avoids rhythmic extroversion, instead deriving pleasure in jokes about a rediscovered old friend, working through one’s passive anxiety over the future, and living in the moment with the knowledge that it’s all there really is. 

2. Bright Future, Adrianne Lenker (4AD/Beat): As the Big Thief guitarist gradually turns into our era’s most distinctive singer-songwriter, her economy of presentation would seem incapable of allowing her to express feelings that are this overwhelming. The tension such a dynamic creates in a standard love song like “No Machine” can only be relieved with a refrain (“I don’t know what I’d do without you”) that raises the pitch of the melody, and with it the vulnerability of the narrator. Lender’s facility with words, not just their meaning but their sound, is exercised to full comic and thematic effect in titles like “Donut Seam” and “Evol,” but it’s the voice that puts them across, yielding, sometimes sardonic, instinctively familiar. I don’t miss the guitar half as much as I thought I would.  

3. Cartoon Darkness, Amyl & the Sniffers (B2B/Beat): The art of settling scores sounds more persuasive when contrived by a punk. It’s not just the snarling attitude, for which Amy Taylor and her trio of Melbourne misfits are rightly celebrated. It has to do with conviction that transcends theatricality, and while much of the bitterness expressed on their third album is reactionary, the funky spirit in the playing matched with Taylor’s exaggerated Australian diphthongs convince me their enmity is in earnest. I accept the adolescent humor in “Jerkin’,” “Pigs,” and “Doing in Me Head,” and can laugh at the sop to feminist outrage in “Tiny Bikini” because I need it to help me cope with a world that isn’t as tolerant of my outlook as it should be. I think they get it better than a lot of rock groups do.   

4. L’bnat, Asmaa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou (EBB Music): A sucker for call-and-response in any genre, I immediately latched on to Moroccan Gnawa artist Asmaa Hamzaoui’s frantic interplay with her backup singers, the Daughters of Timbuktu, when I first heard this album of Sufi devotionals. What’s kept me returning is the fierceness of Hamzaoui’s technique on the bass guembri and the wild percussion, which is so assured that the singers can fall into states of ecstatic choral vocalizing without losing the big picture. Reportedly, this is music reserved for men, and the fact that all the musicians are women and all the songs celebrate women is gravy I can’t consume properly because I don’t understand the language. Who knows what it would do to me if I did.

5. Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé (Sony): Though this isn’t the country album it’s cracked up to be, Bey’s ever more ecumenical approach to album-making has corraled enough recognizable names in the country and country-adjacent fields to bankrupt a battleground state—from Willy and Dolly to Rhiannon Giddens and Post Malone; and in today’s social media-driven music industry, perception is everything. That Cowboy Carter exceeds Renaissance in terms of scale and ambition has little meaning at this point in her career, but the sum of these amazing songs is a credible portrait of the U.S. in all its flawed exuberance. I can’t think of a reason for not declaring her the American pop star of the century. 

6. Big Swimmer, King Hannah (City Slang): Singer Hannah Merrick and guitarist Craig Whittle aren’t afraid of stretching their simple rock compositions beyond what many would think are the songs’ temporal limits, and that’s because both musicians always have something else to add, whether it’s Merrick’s pronouncements on Texas vending machines, Matthew McConaughey, or New York-bred cynicism; or Whittle’s instrumental addenda, which alternate bluesy indulgence with grungey exclamation points. As British nationals expounding on their travels through America, the pair’s super-human ability to convey stone cold ennui without a drop of sarcasm is some kind of skill.

7. El Viejo, Corb Lund (New West): Though gambling isn’t as common a theme as drinking in country music, it’s common enough, and here the estimable Canadian troubadour is monumentally inspired by visions of crap tables and straight flushes, especially when the subjects of that addiction betray guiltless self-awareness at every turn. As the cover art suggests, they’re mainly cowboys whose circumscribed world cares nothing for your pity or derision, men who love a good time regardless of the toll it takes on body and soul. Feel free to laugh out loud at their wanton shenanigans, or dance if you are so inclined, because the perky acoustic arrangements guarantee you’ll get the urge to. 

8. Born in the Wild, Tems (RCA): Nobody deserves their pop stardom as much as Nigerian singer-songwriter Temilade Openiyi, though to hear her address those circumstances on her debut long-player you might think she’s already done with it. Compared to most contemporary R&B, her productions, even when they bring the big beat, highlight the expressive power of her earthy alto (a tad less smokey than Sade’s) with airy, spare arrangements. She keeps the flow in check as she raps over African grooves, afraid you might mistake the melancholy for bitterness. And while her dancehall and hip-hop chops are impeccable, they aren’t used to assert anything more imposing than her love of God and family. 

9. Lost in a Dream, Cassandra Lewis (Elektra): The Nashville cats who made it possible for this former pot farmer to score a major label deal right out of the chute probably think of her as a standard bearer for that classic brassy vocal style associated with Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee, but Cassandra Lewis reminds me more of Johnny Ray, whose epic torment went beyond conventional pop melodrama. In fact, her sensibility aligns more closely with that of the generational cohort that immediately followed the above-mentioned entertainers, freaks who used “fucking” as an adjective and aimed for sonic overkill. None of the usual country cliches for Lewis, who prefers Wizard of Oz analogies and narrators who pop amphetamines for pleasure rather than for work.

10. Where’s My Utopia? Yard Act (Island/Universal): The pub-haunting confessional storyteller is James Smith’s metier as a singer-lyricist. While his band riffs furiously through their fake book of funky indie rock poses, Smith free associates his supposed bio, from childhood to artistic bloom, with sufficient cheek that when someone catches him in a lie (“Are you making this up?”) he readily admits it (“Some of it, yeah, why?”). Never afraid to act ironic in the service of being provocative, Smith cycles through the personas of a bully, a victim, a fraud, and a scared parent, challenging the listener to decide which one is the real him, when, of course, all are him, because only a bully, a victim, a fraud, and a scared parent would choose post-punk front man as a profession.

Runners-up (in order)

Night Reign, Arooj Aftab (Verve/Universal): Pan-stylistic late night mood music that parades its eclecticism in the credits, with cameos by everyone from Elvis Costello to Moor Mother lending atypical support because who wants to distract from that voice?

Butu, Kokoko! (Transgressive/Ultravybe): Not the first nor the last raucous street dance ensemble from Kinshasa, but one that seems determined to ensure they’re the only one you’ll ever remember.

Alligator Bites Never Heal, Doechii (Top Dawg): Rapping (and sometimes singing) as punishing exertion, the only means of addressing fears that would destroy you if you ever stopped.  

pink balloons, Ekko Astral (Topshelf): D.C. punk lives! Shit matters! Gender distinctions are overrated, and mostly irrelevant!

Takkak Takkak (Ngege Ngege Tapes): Less a mashup of Western and Asian noise proclivities than two guys pounding away on everything in sight and coming up with actual music. Hey, put that kitchen sink back where you found it. 

I Lay Down My Life for You, JPEGMAFIA (AWAL): Trolling as gangsta rap, but with a closer affinity to rock’s pleasure principle. 

Proxy Music, Linda Thompson (StorySound): Hiring a bunch of folkies and fellow travelers to sing songs you wrote but can’t sing yourself sounds like a sick joke, especially when you’re one of the greatest singers of all time. Thank God the songs are so weird. 

Cascade, Floating Points (Ninja Tune/Beat): Saw him at a festival last summer expecting jazz. What he played was this, truly intelligent dance music. It was sensational.

The Force, LL Cool J (VMG): Mama says knock you out with a thoughtful take on the dilemma of growing old as a hip-hop classicist. Mama says dance, too. 

Peanuts, Liz Lawrence (Chrysalis): Britain’s hookiest singer-songwriter returns to basics, namely soil and water and plant life. 

Honorable Mentions (alphabetical)

Gemelo, Angelica Garcia

EELS, Being Dead

Lush Life, The Belair Lip Bombs

Hit Me Hard and Soft, Billie Eilish

It’s Sorted, Cheekface

Diamond Jubilee, Cindy Lee

Finally Famous Too, Dlala Thukzin

Harm’s Way, Ducks Ltd.

Brighter Days, Dwight Yoakam

Lafandar, Heems, Lapgan

The Thief Next to Jesus, Ka

Blue Lips, Schoolboy Q

Dance of Love, Tucker Zimmerman

Coming Home, Usher