The Watch - Ep. 105: The Year in Music

Episode Date: December 12, 2016

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald start with a big announcement from Andy (1:28) and then run down their favorite albums of 2016. Then they talk to staff writer Lindsay Zoladz about albums as a delivery system (20:07), surprise albums (24:23), and which albums they kept returning to throughout the year (30:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at The Ringer.com and joining me on the other line. He still loves Paul Simon. It's Andy Greenwald! My friend, I'm in the room. I'm on the line. Oh, did I say on the other line?

I'm sorry. That's because we've been geographically unfaithful. My reference to Paul Simon there was a deep get on the Los Lobos mythology that Paul Simon stole a lot of Graceland from Los Lobos. Not a lot of it, just the myth of fingerprints, just track 10. By the way, this is a fireway to begin a podcast about the year in music. Andy, this is the year in music. We're going to be joined by Lindsay Zollies from The Ringer.

In a little bit, we'll be talking about her best albums of the We're going to talk a little bit about our best albums of the year. But before we get into that, I know you wanted to tell listeners a little something about what you've been up to recently. Like Usher, this is my confession. Yeah, I feel like I got to come clean about some stuff. So I, how to frame this? So, okay, so a bunch of people know, some people know that before Grantland started, I was

attempting to do some writing for television in the creative sense. and when Grantland started and I had the opportunity to write about TV, I basically had to drop the other part because it was a great Ghostbuster once said, you don't cross the streams. So, you know, I had four and a half terrific years writing about TV for Granland, and that's probably why you know me at all from this podcast. When Granland ended, I was actually, before it ended, I was probably on my way out anyway and was thinking about trying again on the creative side of the ball.

because I was an itch I still hadn't scratched and it still meant a lot to me. And I was curious about it, having learned a lot more about how the business worked. So I was thinking about doing that. And then last fall, when Grandland ended, I got an out-of-the-blue phone call from Noah Hawley, the guy who makes Fargo. And he asked me if I would come out to, if I was interested in helping him work on some stuff. And my answer to that was yes. Now, I apologize that I have not been able to be completely forthcoming about this stuff. but the reason is that it wasn't my news to break.

When you work on someone else's stuff and you work in this industry, I can't be, I'm not the publicist. So it's only now that I can confirm that the first thing that I worked on TV as a writer is coming out in February, and it's called Legion. And I think hopefully some people have heard about it

or seen the trailer, and it's coming out on FX in February. Noah Hawley created. I was a very tiny part of it. I worked in the writer's room. My title on episodes 2 through 8 is co-producer, and I had an amazing, amazing time doing it. And it's an incredibly fun and exciting and challenging thing. And so for people wondering why I haven't written any TV criticism since last fall, that's the reason. That's why I'm not doing that anymore.

And the other stuff that I've worked on, or I'm working on now, I will be able to talk about hopefully as soon as I can. But Chris knows about this. I do. I guess I've been complicit in my silence. You are complicit. All our pals at the ringer know about it. And I think, and you know, Chris will step in to talk about it. But I am confident that it's actually in some ways going to make our podcast better.

I will disclose everything I can possibly disclose when it's time to disclose it. That's just that our podcast could be better. That's true. I could be better. You are always, always a thousand. No, honestly, the perspective that I have now, I think, from just an appreciation for an understanding of how much work goes into making TV. and what specifically it takes to make story, I think it's going to help our podcast a lot in our perspective.

But so anyway, so Legion is out in February, and I just want to reiterate again, my role in this, I was welcomed in with great generosity by people who have a lot more experience than I do. Whatever contributions I make were because of their goodwill and good ideas. Are you talking about the podcast or you're talking about the TV show now? Well, in general, this is actually how appropriate of everything that I do.

But anyway, I'm going to post something about this on Twitter, just to say what's up and then I'm going to go dark again. But this has been fun and this is sort of what I'm doing now. You guys might think that this may bring up some conflicts of interest. And you are underestimating how delightfully awkward it's going to be. If I savage anything, Andy works on. It's going to be amazing. No, seriously, though, like Andy and I, like, ultimately this podcast is always from the

perspective of fans and from the perspective of people who just really enjoy talking about popular culture today. and that doesn't change at all. And seriously, like, I plan to watch Legion. I would have anyway. I plan to give some notes. I will take them happily. All I can say going forward is I did serve as the after show host for the television program, Mr. Robot.

And even Sam Esmail knows that I was not reticent to voice my opinions about the second season of Mr. Robot. So it's very hard to keep one's opinions to oneself, especially when one has a microphone and one's face twice a week. So let's move on to the year of music. We've got to get things done so we can get to Lindsay here. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you a little bit about is like you and I both used to be in other lives. You and I both used to be music critics. And something that I realized that was happening like around the mid, early 2000s when I first started doing it really professionally, was the weight that usually was on your shoulders at the end of the year. Not only to feel like you would listen to everything, but also to have an opinion about everything that was relevant.

And as the year in polls started, especially Paz and Jop at the vote. voice, which was kind of the critics gathering point to like really sort of suss out what they thought was the best album and the best single of the year, there would be this emergence of a genre called Best Album. Like so your personal tastes kind of went by the wayside and you got into this, okay, so we're just taught, if we're only talking about these 25 albums that sort of are in contention. So it was the split between best and favorite. Yeah.

And I feel like this year, so this is a long way of saying that this year I just went with my favorites. That this year, I feel like there were a bunch of records that I recognize as being really important. And even in my top 10, there are still some of those records are in there. But for my top 10 this year, I real, I just kind of like a, you know, kind of a come to Jesus moment about two weeks ago where I went through and listened to a bunch of stuff I hadn't heard, revisited some stuff that I had only listened to once or twice. And the list that I kind of came up with, which is honestly, and it always will be for me with this stuff kind of arbitrary. Like I was making a 10 best movies list the other day

And I was like, I don't really rate this over this. These are just my favorites. I haven't seen 10 movies this year. So I haven't flown a lot recently. But with the music, I was like, you know, this is weird. Like I'll have Frank Ocean or Kanye in here that I think a lot of people are also going to be talking about. But then there are weird or smaller records that just meant a lot to me. And that's always been something that I've grappled with at the end of years where I'm just like, I don't, not trying to sound like Armand White.

I just think Symbolsy guitar is. better than everything. Like, I just liked it better than everything else. Um, so it's been a funny process because I feel like when you're looking at a lot of the top 10 list this year, you're seeing a lot of Solange and Beyonce and there's more consensus this year than almost any year I can remember. Yeah. Yeah. And Rio head up at the top and, um, and Bowie and Boie. Chance. Yeah. So there is a lot of consensus. But do you under, you, you know what I'm talking about with that like best of the year as a genre? Yeah, absolutely. This year, you know, it was a strange year for me because both when I was a music critic and,

before I was, when I was, and then after I was, this was kind of fun because I loved keeping a list of this stuff and I love considering it and I always had an abundance of choices. I feel like this year I listened to more music than I did in the last few years without question. Because of Spotify and stuff or because just in general? I think because of Spotify and then actually moving out here when you actually have a, you know, listening to music in car is still pretty cool thing to do as it turns out. Do you really? Just keep up on the voices in your head. I, but yet when it came time to make a list of albums, I really struggled. So I read a lot about how the rise of streaming had made this sort of a post-album era. And I think we're going to talk to Lindsay about how that may no longer be the case,

thanks to some really challenging hip-hop and R&B artists who pushed that envelope this year. But I definitely did not find as many albums as I had in the past. Now, I made a Spotify playlist of over 50 songs that I just think are amazing. And I like some of those songs more than the albums. But in terms of albums that felt essential, that felt big, that felt like the best, that felt like they represented the year and in some way represented my experience listening to them. them. I struggled, except for a couple examples. And we're going to talk about the big ones with each other and with, with, with, uh, with, with, uh, with Lindsay, but I just want to shout out, like the experience of listening to music is always the most subjective of any, of any, um, media.

Like, when we talk about the TV shows that we like, um, you know, when we say, I don't know, we think Atlanta was the best show of the year, you know, I also like watching top chef in my private time, but I don't necessarily think of them in the same way. Whereas this year, Life of Pablo by Kanye and coloring book by chance and the tribe called Quest record held equal place in my earphones in my imagination as this record by an artist called The Range who was just a dude like a DJ dude. Do we still call them DJ dudes? He made an album called Potential where he just sourced samples from YouTube clips of aspiring artists who hadn't made it and he crafted this incredibly beautiful moving, soaring, weirdly minimalist kind of funky record out of it.

And to me, like, that defines this year almost as much as anything else, but that was an extremely private act. Same with, and just as a follow-up, like, this was a year of EPs for me. There's an artist called Hazel English from the Bay Area. I listened to her song, I'm fine more than almost any other song this year, particularly during the political season and the election. Turns out, titles ironic. Is the rest of the EP good?

The rest of the EP is tremendous, shoegazy, almost British-inflicted folk, British inflected, like pop, but she's from the Bay Area. And what about your man, Vince Staples? You put out an EP. You did. And it's so good. And it's better because it's focused. Yeah.

So we actually had these shorter records on par with the best albums, which were, in some cases, extremely long. Yeah. I mean, for me, the ones that were, we're going to talk with Lindsay largely about the sort of, that best of genre. The smaller records or the other records that I really liked, one was pretty years by, Symbolsy guitars. I think probably the thing that I haven't taken that off to stereo in a couple weeks now. I can't roll with dude's voice. Can I be honest with you?

I like it. Come on. I let you have Hazel English. But you hadn't listened to that. And you were like, you were, I hate that kind of music, though. We can be honest with each other. I like the second track on Symbolsy guitars is good. Yeah.

I like that. I like Pine Grove a lot. You know, I really, really loved like that. And I liked a couple of like smaller rap records, like not smaller. But, like, I really, really, really, really, really, really like 21 Savage. Yon Savage, why you're trapping so. How do you nigger capping so? Why you got a twillow?

Tell me, just give me the elevator. I listen to it. Give me the elevator pitch, why that major list? Like, why that's something you listen to you constantly. Just because I don't think he sounds like anyone to me. It sounds like a very, like, what if future only wrapped like this? You're not selling me on that. And then I also really liked, I mean, I think you did too, blankface.

the schoolboy Q out, which I think is actually my favorite rap album of the year as like a complete statement. Really, Pablo has been dropping for me. Pablo has not been... Can I just say about schoolboy? If you distilled everything you and I liked about rap from the minute we met each other 20 years ago to today, it would probably be the part when Jada kiss elbows his way into

the track, like five minutes into Groovy Tony on that schoolboy record. Exactly what I'm going to have when the cops come. Body language is the same As when the shots wrong Yeah Hole in the 38 And a shotgun Real nigger

We all know you are not one Nah It's so good Pablo Sores higher and higher For me Pablo Pablo is Twitter for me

Pablo's got like Really great moments And really like Kind of like Forgetable moments Here's what I think about Pablo I think every Every track on there

is pretty amazing And pretty fascinating And at any moment Could be my favorite song And if you're saying If you're counterpoint To that is What about

the song about his sneakers. I just like the part where the Charlie Heat producer drop comes in, and I get that stuck in my head. I don't know. I think my counter is just that Pablo feels thin to me. In the way the Twitter feels like 140 character profundity. It feels like it's like it's sketches now. Like, and I think it has incredible moments. Like I don't think that there's anything better in pop music in a long time than father stressed my hands. Beats drop. But when he starts rapping. Yeah, I wish he didn't do that. But here's, we talk about Kanye too much on this podcast,

and some people might listen to this in the morning, and then they have to do the drinking game, and then their whole days are shot. But looking over the list, and I think we're going to talk about this with Lindsay, too, like when I was reaching to put other artists on my list, the only really rock representatives other than modern baseball, which, by the way, that modern baseball album still owns for me, I put David Bowie on there.

I put Paul Simon on there. Sorry Los Lobos. I look at what Kanye did this year. Kanye is still the only one out there trying. And what I mean is he's trying to do everything. He's trying to be the rock stars that we used to have. And clearly to the detriment of his mental and physical and emotional health. So I worry about him.

But the degree to which an album still matters to him, the degree to which winning Grammys, to the degree to which owning the narrative to being, pushing himself to all limits, quote, unquote, for us. And, you know, that's something that we saw in when we saw the St. Pablo Tour, where he was, we couldn't even see him. The spotlights were on his fans. I'm pretty moved by that in a year when so many other artists either retreated, traditional artists either retreated or felt inessential. And obviously when I say that, I'm not talking about the ones that made our list. I'm not talking about Rihanna, who made, you know, probably the best album, quote unquote, album of her career.

or Beyonce chance is certainly going for it. But there are so many other records I wanted to like Radiohead. And just, they just, they fell flat. I find Pablo would like to be the most exciting and inspiring record of the year and just the most compelling story. Well, we'll talk to Lindsay's about Pablo and a bunch of other albums. We'll just take a quick break from our sponsors. And Lindsay will join us.

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and using offer code watch, terms and conditions apply. Andy, now we are welcomed. We welcome, actually. We are not welcome. We welcome in one of the ringers pop culture critics and pop culture writers. Lindsay Zolad, who's also Del Vow native. Thank goodness. Let's keep it pure on this podcast.

What's up, Lindsay? Hey, what's up? If you guys could call me Your Holiness on this podcast. Oh, that's right. Lindsay is maybe as excited for Young Pope as we are. Dude, you're coming back next month. And I've been waiting. I've been waiting to me.

make that joke literally for months. Can I, can I do a quick young Pope aside for you, Lindsay? I received screeners of young Pope, and I tried to fire it up the other night. The whole, like a family plan, just like the wife and I were going to fire up the young Pope, and she said, what's this about? And I said, it's all there in the title. Jesus Christ. And we turned it on. And the opening, I hope HBO isn't mad about this, opening credit image is of a baby climbing on a mountain of other babies. The babies might be alive or they might be dolls. And my My wife was like, nah. Are you saying that you have a theory about young pope?

No, I'm saying my wife said, nah. My wife said pass. So you have not seen young pope yet. No, I've seen the first 10 seconds of a crawling baby. And if that makes you more or less excited, that that's on you, audience and Lindsay. Lindsay, we wanted to have you on because we wanted to talk about the year and albums. You wrote about this for The Ringer. And I thought it was really interesting because you were obviously grappling with the importance

of the album as like a delivery system for the music you love. And you obviously thought that this year was a huge year for the album, in part because we kind of gave up on our preconceived notions of what the album should be, right? Yeah, like, it should not have been a great year for the album by so many counts. Like, we've heard a lot about how streaming is a lot more focused turned the single. And even when we've been presented with albums before, like, listeners are kind of picking out certain songs that they want. and that becoming the signal. So it was pretty unexpected, just how great a year for albums this was, and how, like, experimental and weird a lot of the biggest pop albums that we got were.

You know, obviously Frank Ocean, Beyonce, Chance, putting out his, like, mixtape slash album, Chance Three. And Pablo, and it just, like, the list goes on. And I think a lot of, it was a year where a lot of the weirdest and most, experimental music coming out of these artists was like some from some of the biggest musicians and most popular you didn't even have to really go that far into like the indie sphere to find just really weird shit yeah can i can i drop a theory on you and then i just i would love to hear your take on this i'm just testing it out this is a safe space for play um in many ways this year for me was my first post-album year because I struggled making a top 10, but I had no trouble at all

making a playlist of over 50 songs that I thought were just terrific. But I wonder if you agree with this theory, which is that if everything is cyclical, and Chris is nodding, because Chris is a big believer in just Westworld as applied to life. I'm just, I'm staring at you like, you're the young pope, but I'm James Cromwell. I am smoking the cigarette down to the filter. If the last few years, like when streaming took off, people were saying, oh, now the music industries returning to the way it used to be like in the 50s and 60s where everyone is a singles artist, it's a singles based industry, right? I feel like this year was the beginning of late 60s, 70s, when albums were only worth listening to if they had something to say, when people

cleared their throats as the artist you mentioned did and really went for it on the big screen, on the widescreen kind of canvas. Is that a correct assessment in your eyes? I mean, I like that. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but I think it's, We're kind of, like, I have thought about this as like the analogous to the beginning of the AOR era, but we tend to associate that more with, like, rock artists and particularly white male artists. And I think there's something going on where for the first time, like, even when you're talking about the 50s and 60s, there was this kind of, and while the AOR stuff was going on, like, there was that dichotomy where, like, pop was a singles game. rock was like where the important statement album came out and I think it's almost the opposite right now where you're getting these incredible statement pop albums in this format that seemed to be all but dying and becoming obsolete but is getting new life through you know artists that used to be considered single artists like I think riana is a perfect example of that like this

ante is really the first like actual album that that Rihanna has made in terms of like it being something with a cohesive mood and that is more about the full arc of listening to it than just like a collection of singles, but also she had incredible success with a couple singles from that record. So I think you're seeing that become almost more the norm in the pop space where, whereas like, I mean the whole obsolescence of rock music in some sense is a whole other conversation, But that to me was something that really was new about this year. Lindsay, I wanted to ask you about the idea of these albums and the releases as events and also as surprise parties.

I thought that that kind of peaked and shattered with Frank over the course of those few weeks there with Endless and Blonde, where he kind of just had everybody on pins and needles waiting for this record that they had been anticipating for such a long time. and in my opinion actually I mean blonde more than lived up to that but there was something sort of insane about the you know up at midnight watching an Apple music TV

stream of a guy making a stero case as the way that we're in I mean it's not that much different than going to Tower Records at midnight for a release day 10 years ago but I was wondering this is sort of a two-part question where is your head at in terms of like the state of the surprise release

or the event release. And then as a follow-up, looking at your 10 best here, what is the record, not that you loved the most, but that you actually listened to the most from the moment it was surprise dropped to date, you know, unknown in the future.

Yeah. So Frank first, I'll talk about. I, you know, I think in a lot of ways, endless was sort of the anti-lemonade or like the anti-visual album and that he really did just get us to stare at him making furniture in a weird warehouse and like speculate on that. And it felt very trolly in an effective way, I think, because, you know, it's easy to forget now because the record was so good or the records, depending on how you

want to define it. But people were pissed initially when it just seemed like, is this going to come out? Is this all we've been waiting for? Like, is he just kind of pulling her leg? And I do remember just a bit of frustration from people when that was going on. But I think it, I mean, I think that endless was more of the statement in terms of a surprise album. Right. Bond, because it seemed to be, I don't know if he's confirmed this, but it seems like he was kind of just throwing something out there to, like, get out of his album contract with Def Jam. And then he was able to release Blonde through his own label.

So there was something, like, it was kind of a fuck you to just throw out this collection that kind of sounds like demos, but it still is really good because it's Frank Ocean Music. And, like, even his demos are going to be better than anybody else's album was. So that felt, yeah, there felt like something just in terms of the anticipation and how he was actively kind of trolling that, but then just sprung the bigger statement on us kind of out of nowhere the next day, which was blonde. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I personally am really sick of the whole surprise album thing just as a critic, because on a very selfish note, I think it has changed the discourse around that a lot. For sure. Been a nightmare for people that are covering it. But

I kind of, I don't necessarily think it's going to go anywhere, but I do think. I do think what you're going to see is like artists doing more traditional releases like I think the weekend is kind of an example of that that there was a rollout for that record but it was way shorter than it would have been like three years ago you know we would have had three months of them teasing that album and I think he only announced it maybe like a month before and that still felt like a really long time in 2016 so I just on Instagram yeah yeah yeah and I think the window of that is going to continue to shrink just for, you know, there's a cool factor to it. I think the surprise album is like the ultimate boast of like, I don't really need to promote this

because I'm so famous that people are going to buy it anyway. And, you know, so it doesn't work for every artist in that regard. But so your second question, I do think that Life of Pablo was the thing I listened to the most. I just kept returning to it, and I think it's one of those records that I cycled through about 10 different favorite songs on that throughout the year, which it's, you know, it's the kind of album that you can start at different points or, you know, the back half, or if you start with the selection of tracks that he really did just tack on, like, the day before I came out with, like, 30 hours onward. that's a whole different EP, you know, mood-wise. And so I found myself really just putting that on when I had nothing else to listen to. And as I have said elsewhere, I'm a really nervous flyer, and I had to go on some airplanes this year.

And my new ritual is like listening to ultralight beam during takeoff. That's beautiful. I truly feel that nothing can harm me. That is, once a song that makes me feel like nothing bad can happen to me and also would be a very appropriate song for falling out of the sky. Exactly. No, that's the logic there. I would die to that song. I reminded myself this morning on the way in, on the 101 freeway that the way, you know, some actors need like to chop onions or whatever to like or think of their pet that died in order to get tears going. I just have to listen to Chance just stroll onto the stage and with his verse on that track. Yeah, I mean, Chris and I talk about this all the time, but I mean, Pablo was, I agree with you completely for any number of reasons, I think it was the best record of the year.

But one of them is I love records that you are so packed with amazing, digressive, different types of quality that you forget the songs that are on it. And you're almost surprised because it can hit you in a different way. I mean, records from like Fleetwood Max Tusk to Biggie's Ready to Die are just these overstuffed things and everything is good. It's the hardest album to make, and I think Pablo is that. But speaking of these event records and surprise records, Lindsay, you are a person of the world, you're a person of the internet. You exist in culture. You have to surf these various waves of culture as they come at you.

You mention how challenging it is to cover records that just drop out of nowhere. I'm curious, some of the albums that we were talking about as surprises are, they weren't just surprises, they were also growers. The Frank record is probably like that. I'm still waiting for the radio head record to grow on me. Same. Oh, good. Okay, we could talk about that in a second.

Slander. Even going back to Kendrick last year, these are records that even in the most ideal circumstances require patience. And patience with culture is just not something that the current social media world is equipped to deal with. So what's your process? How do you carve out time to actually engage with the records and treat them with the seriousness that they may, well, or may not, but may deserve?

Yeah, it's tricky and it's becoming trickier every year. But I do think it, I mean, it varies depending on the record for me and kind of when my deadline is and how much I can successfully beg for a few more days to spend with an album. But I think with the Frank record, I spent about a weekend with it. And for me, I think when I'm reviewing something, it's always the important part is to like listen to it. it in a few different contexts. So I'll do the headphones listen, like, just in my nice headphones with nothing else going on, and then I'll put it on in the background of something. I'll take it on the subway. I'll take it on a walk. And so I think even when I have three weeks to write about something, that's kind of how I test it out in the world. So with the surprise album, like, I try to just do that really fast in one day and get all those experiences in and see how the record sounds in that context, but I agree it's it's kind of troubling that because especially now a lot of the other issue with the surprise albums is like critics aren't getting them before the listeners are. It's just

everybody is hearing it at the same time and there's something really there is something democratic about that that you can be live tweeting it along with you know whatever music critic from ex publication. But there's yeah, I think a lot of these albums and the ones I talk about in the piece that were sort of out there and weird art growers. And Blonde didn't really grab me until maybe like the fourth listen. I think there is a transcript on our slack of me talking about how I hated it the first time I listened to it. And now it's like, I think my second or third favorite album of the year. Yeah, I thought because I was going to ask you if there was anything that you were like, I was wrong.

you know like either i overrated this or yeah well that one i i like had my come to jesus moment with it before my deadline which was great and i was able to write pretty much a rave of it um but yeah i'm trying to think if there's something i want like a mea culpa on or i don't know i I do think, like, I'm curious if there's going to be more of a reaction of, like, criticism going back to stuff too. When Pablo came out, I was still working at New York Magazine and sort of as a trolley thing, but also had an actual idea to just, I re-reviewed Yuzis instead of writing about Pablo immediately, which I think. my editors were okay with that. I asked for permission and was just like, I'll have my review in a few days, but wanted to, yeah, just start that. Almost think like a political statement about it, right? Yeah, a political statement about me being lazy and not wanting to write

really quickly on deadline. But yeah, I think I'm interested in more discussion about that kind of stuff too. And now that it's like year on time, people may be going back. and rewriting about things that they ingested really quickly or allowing themselves to be wrong and to own up to that kind of stuff. And yeah, I think for me, like the blonde thing, I did turn around on it really quickly. But the first two times I was like, what is he done? I don't understand this at all.

Which, yeah, like you're saying, I think is often the mark of a really great album. Yeah, when it emerges to you. Yeah. It's good in like a new way that your ears almost have to adjust. to it the first couple of times, and that's absolutely how I felt about Frank. So I think, yeah, that's my one worry that we're not building in that time as much as listeners, but I also think the albums that came out this year and how challenging a lot of the big pop albums were shows that that's not making the artist shy away from making challenging and difficult music.

So looking over your top 10 list, which everyone should do, it's on the ringer.com, There's a lot of overlap with my list. There's a lot of overlap with Chris's list. And I feel like, and I'm intuiting here, that there may have been some similar thinking. I'd love to hear your take on it, which is that, as you said earlier, the most challenging, the most interesting,

the most demanding, not in terms of difficulty in listening to them, although that's part of it, but in terms of demanding your attention records came from the hip-hop and R&B world. You have Beyonce, Solange, Frank Ocean, Kanye, Tribe Called Quest, which I still can't get over that record. If it came out a month earlier, maybe even higher on my list,

Rihanna and Chance. and then you sort of got the, I feel like you ran into the same problem I did, which is when it came time to represent, you know, for my own people, the white male artist. You got Leonard Cohen on there. I put Paul Simon and David Bowie on my list. The theme of Lindsay's work this year has definitely been defend white men. I think, well, the Internet in general. That's actually the theme of it.

And, good job by you, Internet. Good job America. But in terms of finding records that really resonated, I was shocked that the older artists that somehow elbowed their way on there. And then you had Mitzki at the bottom of your list. So did you go through, did you, did you actually like try to rack your brain to find a rock record to put on this list? I mean, it just felt so deeply essential. I was trying to talk myself into Joyce Manor, you know, which is a pop punk record that I love. But I don't love it as much as these other records. I wouldn't even put it on the same list. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the, so I will say

Bowie was my number 11. I have like the bottom half of my top 20 list that I can post somewhere to because I got, you know, you get all manners of like, um, horrific mentions when you do any kind of list. Of course. People are like, oh, how do you put such and such over David Bowie? He died. And it's like, chill. I got it. Got it on there. Um, yeah, but I think, I don't think I was straining to find what. Like I did really, I think Angel Olson, that record is terrific. And I guess you could consider that a rock record, although she's such an interesting hybrid of like folk and country and pop. And there's all sorts of stuff going on there. But yeah, it just felt, I'm wondering if it was a year where because of just the weird vibes in the country, the depressing political climate, you know, just the unending sense of dread.

hovering over us the entire time that there was something really cathartic in the fact that a lot of us were listening to the same music and enjoying the same music. And it did feel like a year where I was reaching to kind of the obscure corners of my listening habits a lot less. And, you know, I do think it was a year where we were looking for some sort of collectivity and consensus because we weren't finding it in the political moment. So, like, if we could find it at the very least in music and in art, I do think it was a year that, yeah, like, it was great to agree with so many people that Lemonade was a really good and important and just artistically visionary statement.

But, yeah, I found, I did find that in my listening that I was not kind of looking to the indie rock world as much because I don't even know that that feels like an alternative anymore. You know, like I think when you get a record as weird and as popular as coloring book or even as Pablo, you know, I think that satisfied a lot of the things I used to look for in more like out there music. You're getting that in pop. I agree with that completely. Lindsay, we're going to wrap up there, Thank you so much for joining us. Send us your bottom 10 list there so we can put it up with everything else. Because your mentions aren't lit enough.

And everyone will get mad at you for what's not in the top 20 and you'll have to do the next 10. So it never ends. Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much for joining us. By number 21, we'll be lit. Yeah. Talk to you soon.

All right. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Watch today. We'll be back on Thursday with a very special episode with a guest to talk about the best TV of the year. Yeah, great job. Baranski's. Thanks, man. Support from the Watch.

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