Trevor Graham’s Top Albums of 2021

Best of 2021

2021 was a year, and like most years, some music came out. Most of it was good! Just not Clairo. I did a little top 50 countdown on Instagram, so this year I’m just gonna pull those blurbs for my personal Chorus blog. Most of it was written off the cuff, so there’s a loose feel — don’t expect Hemingway, y’know? Had to keep things short. Catch me around the forums to tell me how bad my taste is, I will laugh for a few minutes before blocking you. Just kidding. Maybe. I dunno, fuck around and find out I guess.

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Review: Sydney Sprague – Maybe I Will See You at the End of the World

Sydney Sprague - Maybe I Will See You at the End of the World

Time is a tricky thing. It spins effortless wonders to convince us that things only flow in one direction — that our formative experiences lie sleeping in youthful days, branded upon our beating hearts like the aging wrinkles of our skin. And sure, there’s a strong case for it when you consider that most things along the way can’t be undone, because time knows better than that. But for every irreversible consequence, at some point we’re sure to round the bend and revisit the old feelings that once felt, for better or worse, completely inescapable. By will or by weakness, by physics or by fate. Because when it comes down to it, time is really just a big, flat fucking circle. When we long to be seen, we’re often faced with our own reflections. When we crave growth, we’re reminded of where we’ve come from. On Maybe I Will See You at the End of the World, Sydney Sprague finds herself caught amidst this phenomenon, crafting a series of introspective pop rock singalongs to make new waves in the struggle to navigate the ones she’s spent her life stirring up.

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Trevor Graham’s Top Albums of 2020

Best of 2020

If you’re here, I’m gonna guess it’s not to read my ramblings about 2020. So let’s ignore the elephant in the room, yeah? No one invited it, anyway. This was definitely another superb year for music though, as always, and the artists that were there for us had every reason not to be. Ranking just 50 records hasn’t ever been so difficult for me to do — the top 35 or so I wish could all just be in my top 10. But alas, numbers.

Once upon a time, I did end of the year write ups similar to this where I wrote lengthy blurbs about each record in a very composed “review” kind of tone. But as the years went on, writing 50 mini-reviews felt kind of like a chore. As a result, 2018 and 2019 wound up just being lists. Sad. And what’s the point of just sharing a list of records if I’m not gonna say anything about them? So this year, I wrote a little bit about each record, but made a goal to keep it casual. Just typing off the cuff, a little bit about each selection — a few sentences on why I liked the record. Some more than others, but for no real reason. Parts of this might be a little repetitive (ctrl+F ‘jazzy’) or rambling, but hopefully it’s a little easier to digest for anyone that’s made it this far. It was certainly easier to throw together on my end. So without further ado, here are my top 50 records of 2020! Catch me in the forums with a hot take if you’ve got them!

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Trevor Graham’s Top Albums of 2020 (So Far)

Best of 2020 (So Far)

I mean, where do I even start with this year? I don’t. I don’t! I simply refuse. We’re all painfully aware of what kind of year this has been. Let’s just go ahead and skip the context that would typically be required for me to say something like, oh I dunno, thank fucking God-or-whoever for music this year. Seriously. In any year, this would have been an absolutely bananas six months of new tunes, but this year it has been especially appreciated. Whether it’s a newcomer or a triumphant return, defining solo career or dream collaboration — it’s 2020 and musicians are really out here Shooting. Their. Shots. So what have I been listening to and loving the most? I assume you clicked this to find out, so I’ll cut the impromptu ramble (but thanks for hanging in there). Here are my top 30 albums of the year so far.

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Trevor Graham’s Top Albums of 2019

What a year. It feels like at least one Friday a month I was rambling around the site about another incredible release day we were being treated to. When I sat down to make this list, the number of albums I’d listened to this year that I enjoyed wound up at about 270. And sure, there are some obvious factors to this that I think a lot of us share — the way this decade has sculpted how we consume music, for one. The 2010’s made discovering new music one of the single easiest things a person can do, and one of the most entertaining activities with ten bucks in your pocket and an internet connection.

But I think the ease and passion for discovery are only the cause for a bigger reason why this was such a remarkable year in music. Because naturally with more music will come more open mindedness, more inspiration, and more tools for artists to create a unique price of art. With each year, that tool belt grows, and we see artists framing their vision of certain sounds differently than we could have ever imagined — blending influences from all directions and being encouraged to tell their stories. In the passing of time, it becomes more difficult to not fall in love with an astonishing amount of music.

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Track List: October – Falling Leaves

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music, and read more about the selections below.

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Review: Breakup Shoes – So Money, Baby

Breakup Shoes - so money, baby EP

The inherent nature of a “goal” is to be currently out of reach. Whether far down the road or just fingertips away, goals are the checkpoints we set to help us navigate the uncertainty of life. But the problem, ironically enough, is that uncertainty turns out to be one hell of a goaltender. It’s a relentless opponent that’s not above mind games, and if left unchecked, will tug at the threads of our insecurities until we’re left completely unwoven. Fortunately for So Money, Baby, the Arizona quartet known as Breakup Shoes have provided a bit of sugar for the pill, pairing soda pop sweet, surf-flavored indie rock with a bare-skinned attempt to snip the thread and prevent further undoing.

Mid-album single “Accessory” hits on the central theme surrounding vocalist Nick Zawisa’s core emotional vulnerability — an unrequited love. With a warm, muted bass tone, Derek Lafforthun drives his bandmates through mellow verses in a lackadaisical swagger, crafting a melody of his own before giving way to a subtle, but undeniably strong vocal hook: “I just want to be what you hold close / I just want to be who you love most”. The majority of the lyrical content throughout So Money, Baby is spent this way, deliberating on “what if” scenarios penned by a hopeless romantic. Frankly, there’s not much to be said for it — often left to be desired across the record is a semblance of nuance in exchange for the melodrama. But in the moments where Zawisa opts to deviate from the norm, he briefly lifts the veil to a more compelling premise: the longing to be wanted at all, and the seeping dubiety in meditating on his goals of finding any form of significance in a life outside his own.

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Track List: September – Strings & Things

Playlist

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music and read more about the selections below.

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Review: Grayscale – Nella Vita

Grayscale

Despite all of its bittersweet essence, few things are as inherently mesmerizing as a reflection on the past. For every new pin in our cork boards, it grows easier by the day to become entangled in the through-line that connects them — from our most inimitable highs, to the devastatingly irreclaimable lows. The sight of the same model car you once drove can trigger an afternoon’s worth of flashbacks, places visited, and relationships formed. A sudden difficult decision may silently launch a week of intricate recollection. Retracing steps, tiring over minute details and things left unsaid. And though we can’t control it, the fact remains that on some level, our memories are revisited daily. We subconsciously roam the rooms of our mind, dusting its shelves and replaying stories like slides in an old projector. Toeing the line between toxic and therapeutic behavior. In a sense, the deliberate attempt to walk that line is perhaps the most distinguishable aspect of what sets Nella Vita apart from the pack of Grayscale’s pop-punk contemporaries.

“I drove past your mother’s house / just to see how it felt / How’s it all been since we were kids / Just hope that you’re doing well.”

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Track List: August – Sunkissed

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music and read more about the selections below.

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Track List: July – Poptimism

Playlist

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music and read more about the selections below.

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Track List: June – The Sounds Of Summer

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music and read more about the selections below.

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Track List: May – Warming Up

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music read more about the selections below.

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Track List: April – Breezy Days & Stretching Legs

Playlist

Welcome back to Track List, your monthly dose of 30 songs aimed to match the time of year, sequenced into a playlist for you to vibe out to however you see fit. Hopefully some names will be familiar, and hopefully some will give you a new discography to dive into. Drop me a line with some of your seasonal favorites and check back every month for a new playlist.

You can find the playlist on Spotify and Apple Music and read more about the selections below.

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Review: The Maine – You Are OK

The Maine

There are some things that come stock with being a human. For example, youthfulness is an inherent birthmark that time can never truly erase. The Maine’s 2017 release, Lovely, Little, Lonely, reminded us that loneliness is not a feeling exhibited exclusively by those who happen to be alone. But if that piercing solitude is just one more needle somehow stitching us to one another, then why is it still so easy to feel so … isolated? It’s the thousand-yard stare into your reflection with that prospective new shirt on. The nights spent laying just a little too still, the ones that can only be described as hours of staring into the back of your eyelids. The heart-fluttering hesitation in confronting yourself with the question “is this where I want to be?” In the end, the sentiment of inadequacy will always remain an individual cross to bear. It’s a distinct brand of discomfort that illusively seems to stem from a series of our commonalities as humans, but that, in reality, is near impossible to divorce from our unique personal experiences.

And let’s be real: the past few years have given us every reason to become lost in that discomfort. Often in a perpetual state of examining the importance of mental health while becoming increasingly aware of the very things that deteriorate it.

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