Audia’s Top 10 of 2019
This year, listening to music by women and queer artists (as well as listening to what they had to say) had the distinct feeling of coming home to oneself after a long time away. Lizzo built a movement around radical self-love and irresistable bops; Phoebe Bridgers and Mandy Moore banded together to expose Ryan Adams as an abuser; Normani made us all newly-minted fans with the breath of fresh air that was her hit song “Motivation” and its accompanying video; and Taylor Swift is maybe, finally, really happy.
In looking over our Audia Weekly playlists from this year, I was thrilled not only by the range of genres and experimentation (St. Vincent released a new remix what seemed like every week?) but also the artistic growth displayed by more established artists and the exciting new directions that new artists are promising to take us in. While there’s a lot to look forward to in 2020—I’m still maintaining that it’s the year we’re going to get a new Fiona Apple album—we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the most empowering, most innovative, and most life-affirming music by non-male-identified people of 2019. — Kate Flynn
10. Georgia Maq — Pleaser
Poison City / Run for Cover Records
Georgia Maq, who leads the Melbourne punk outfit Camp Cope, runs headlong into unfamiliar sonic territory on Pleaser, her solo debut. Maq traces the steps of pop greats like Robyn while carving out her own footprint in the form of dangerously blissful (and sometimes blissfully dangerous) synth-heavy tunes about self-love, driving blind, and the difficulty in trying to please “all the ones that love me least.” Retaining her signature gift for wordplay and brutal honesty even in this new aural format, Maq crafts a record that at times sounds larger than life, but at its heart is always refreshingly human-sized. — KF
9. Jenny Lewis — On the Line
Capitol Records
Although the events that Jenny Lewis recounts and expounds on in her fourth solo album—reconnecting with her mother right before her death, the dissolution of a long-term relationship—are heavy by nature, the overall attitude never strays far from light-hearted, which is what makes Lewis such a goddamn gift: what’s the point of being alive if you can’t laugh about your problems? On the Line packs a heavy punch, but its overall themes are hope, lightness and optimism. Lewis cements her place in the indie cannon with this eleven-track exercise in making the most of a series of dire situations. — KF
8. Weyes Blood — Titanic Rising
Sub Pop
Read what we said about Titanic Rising here.
7. Billie Eilish — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go
Interscope Records
Don’t be fooled by its place on the Billboard Top 40, the six Grammy Nominations including Album of the Year, three MTV Video Music Awards, and two American Music Awards—When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go is not your average best-selling pop album. It’s dark and bass heavy, a goth opus wrapped in an electronica blanket. 18-year old Billie Eilish doesn’t waste time on traditional pop tropes and she’s not pretending that everything is okay. With songs about prescription drug addiction (“xanny”), climate change and the California wildfires (“all the good girls go to hell”), and toxic masculinity (“bad guy”), Eilish has created an audio time capsule full of vulnerability, catchy hooks, and beats you can dance to. In a year when we all watched the Amazon and democracy burn, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go is an album for 2019 and Eilish is the voice of a generation. It signals that the kids are not alright, but they’re fighting back. —Meagan Lilly
6. Vagabon —Vagabon
Nonesuch Records
The self-titled sophomore album by Vagabon, the Cameroonian-American artist Laetitia Tamko, is a slow-burning stunner in its own right, but it also showcases Tamko’s considerable artistic growth in the time since her well-received guitar-driven debut, Infinite Worlds. Digital sounds, strings, and hip-hop and R&B-driven beats expand her aural palette, painting a lush picture of her own journey of self-discovery and her challenges in navigating relationships with friends, family and lovers. It feels both personal and universal, lush but not overwrought, close-talking and boldly bombastic. — KF
5. Mannequin Pussy — Patience
Epitaph Records
Read what we said about Patience here.
4. FKA Twigs — Magdalene
Young Turks
Five years since her last full-length effort and with a slew of new skills under her belt (pole-dancing, the ancient Martial art of Wushu—super casual, normal skills), Tahliah Debrett Barnett, or FKA twigs, emerged back on the scene in classic FKA twigs fashion: as a modern renaissance woman with a record that transcends the art of the LP. From its music videos to twigs’ live show, Magdalene isn't just an album—it’s a multimedia experience unlike anything else.
In a recent interview with Zane Lowe, Barnett said, “Now that Magdalene is finished, I feel like I can have a new blueprint for how I want to be as a human, and how I want to live my life, and how I want to make my art.” If Magdalene is the first output from that blueprint, buckle up world, because we’re undoubtedly in for twigs treat after twigs treat. — Amanda Koellner
3. Yola — Walk Through Fire
Easy Eye
Read what we said about Walk Through Fire here.
2. Clairo — Immunity
FADER Label
By turns bare-bones and lush, Immunity, the full-length debut from viral sensation Clairo, builds on all the early promise of YouTube-famous songs like “Pretty Girl” and “Bubble Gum.” While 20-year-old Claire Cottrill has incited “industry plant” controversy due to her father’s record label connections, the immaculate craftsmanship of Immunity, which Cottrill arranged and recorded with the help of Rostam Batmanglij acting in the role of producer, is nothing if not fully-formed. Insightful, intimate, and sweet in a way that never feels saccharine, Immunity is an immaculate debut by an essential new correspondent from the land of young adulthood. — KF
1. Angel Olsen — All Mirrors
Jagjaguwar
‘Tis the season for self reflection and resolutions, amplified this year by the dawn of a new decade, as side-by-side 2010 vs. 2019 self portraits, extensive lists analyzing the past 10 years in pop culture, and predictions for 2020 and beyond invade social media. One can only hope that if we could time travel and borrow 6 minutes and 23 seconds from Strange Cacti-era Angel Olsen, circa 2010, to show her the stunning, cinematic video for “Lark”, she’d be pretty damn stoked on the decade ahead. Perhaps a bit romantically frightened, but stoked.
The singer’s fourth full-length, All Mirrors, is her best yet—an impressive feat given 2016’s impeccable My Woman. While a more barebones version of the record is expected next year, the 2019 release found Olsen reuniting with co-producer John Congleton, collaborating with Jherek Bischoff and Ben Babbitt on arrangements, and tapping a 12-person orchestra, allowing her a wholly fresh, much more sonically full sound complete with synths and strings.
Recording solo in Anacortes, Washington also allowed her to to submarine even deeper into the emotional well we’ve all come to know and love to gift us poetic musings on what it means to be in a relationship, what it means to be single, and what it means to ponder both of those potential realities as a woman in your early 30s. All Mirrors takes 2019’s welcome theme of female empowerment (and strong backing of the fact that It Is, Indeed, Okay To Be Single) and adds a bit of heartbreak to the recipe. Lyrically, it’s a welcome dose of musical reality for those of us happy to be riding the Independent Women resurgence captained by the Lizzos and Ariana Grandes of the world, but still can’t help but feel a bit like shit about lost love.
“I feel so smart, but when it comes to love, I have such an imagination,” Olsen told Crack Magazine this summer. That imagination might make matters of the heart more difficult IRL, but it also gave us Audia’s record of the year. And for that, we say, keep dreaming Angel. Good god, please keep dreaming. — AK
Check out our Songs We Loved in 2019 playlist and follow Audia Weekly on Spotify—the only weekly playlist devoted to new releases by women and non-binary artists, updated every Friday.