I spend all my money on shit clothes

      

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's top 50 albums of 2022. 

#14 : Natural Brown Prom Queen - Sudan Archives

“I’m a home maker,” Brittney Parks sings on the opening track of her second album proper. “Only bad bitches in my trellis / And baby I’m the baddest.” It’s both an invitation to her space and a gauntlet thrown to see if listeners can keep up with her across Natural Brown Prom Queen, which skips from looped strings (on Parks’ primary instrument, the cello) to the club and stops off everywhere in between, sometimes within the scope of a single song. She’s an R&B traditionalist and an experimental innovator, admirably cocksure and relatably insecure: a dazzling maximalist whose idea of home feels cosmos-like in scope.

Never heard of her - and from the description above, I'm pretty certain I'm not going to be able to keep up with her, but I'll give it a go.

Well - there's certainly a lot packed into the 54 minutes (which is one of the longer albums we've seen this year).  I agree that she's an R&B traditionalist - bringing to mind Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Kelis in places for me, but I'm sure those who are more familiar with the genre will scoff at my pitiful ignorance (and I'd be the first to agree with them).  There are interesting sounds, rhythms and samples used throughout and she uses her voice well over them throughout.  It's not really my sort of thing, but I can admire the work she's put in here and the results she's got - it's interesting to compare this with Steve Lacy, which just feels lazy in comparison.  It's also got a very striking album cover as well - all very arty.

No UK chart activity for this album, which is a shame when we see some of the stuff that we've had to endure throughout the year.  It does have a sizeable Wikipedia entry, which I found quite interesting.  It tells me the album is named after a homecoming event - which lead me off down a "What the fuck is homecoming?" Wikipedia rabbit hole.  It also goes into quite some detail on the videos for the singles, so I watched them - and, well, they're really quite something (I don't spend nearly enough time watching music videos these days).

The best thing about the entry though is the names of some of the people involved in the album - Simon On The Moon, Orlando Higginbottom (who you probably know better as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs), Nosaj Thing, Queens D.Light, Mononeon and Egyptian Lover were my favourites.  The critics liked the album, but there's no mention of a US chart placing either - which is a double shame.

"Customers also listened to" NNAMDI, Yaya Bey (there are areas of similarity with this) and Jockstrap (we're getting closer to listening to this).  Ms Archives was an interesting listen though - I feel like I would have enjoyed this more if I had better knowledge of the area.

#13 : Most Normal - Gilla Band

Pure, obliterating derangement is the order of the day in Gilla Band’s third album, which turns rock inside out, feeds it through a post-Yeezus filter of pixilated howls and distortion, then transfuses it with a vital shot of humour and dread. Despite the Irish four-piece’s taste for desecration, Most Normal retains a supremely addictive sense of pop integrity: it’s filled with twisted earworms (“I can’t wear hats I just get slagged!”), a kaleidoscopic wealth of texture, and dramatic climaxes as addictive as any Top 40 middle-eight.

I've never heard of them Gilla boys, but I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not going to like it...

And, no, I most definitely didn't like it.  But, well - it's quite an interesting "not like".  The backing tracks are very industrial, often distorted but quite varied (although quite why The Guardian describes it as "a post-Yeezus filter" - these boys definitely haven't been listening to Ye for inspiration) and the vocals are surprisingly clear (at times, at least) and often amusing.  So I found it an interesting listen - but one I will never, never be experiencing again.

I very much doubt this will have charted - nope, it never got anywhere near and it doesn't get a Wikipedia entry either.  So I took a quick look at their entry and can tell you they're Irish (the album did get to #11 over there), they were originally call Girl Band (but changed their name to stop "propagating a culture of non-inclusivity") and a critic described their music by saying it "sounds like it was recorded in a meat locker under a fallout shelter" - which is amusing, but accurate.

"Customers also listened to" Special Interest (I'd already forgotten I'd listened to this), Moin, Jockstrap and Palm - all in all, not my area of expertise.  As are Gilla Band, but I found this an interesting listen, which I very much doubt I'll forget I've listened to.  But it definitely won't be happening again.

#12 : Harry's House - Harry Styles

It’s a tall order for a superstar to pull off an intimate record: it’s a contradiction of scale, plus the more famous you are, the more fiercely guarded your privacy. On Styles’ third album, he comes admirably close to landing the pitch. It isn’t quite Paul McCartney’s Ram, but there’s a lived-in quality to Harry’s House in the domestic settings, the unexplained snatches of dialogue between lovers and friends, and the sudden awareness of change as you see a shadow lengthen with the seasons. The music, too, seems to flick through Styles’ own record collection: there’s some flagrant Macca-isms there from a well-documented fan, as well as west coast bonhomie, big-ticket 80s pop and Laurel Canyon delicacy. 

Our fifth one we've previously met - and it was one I wasn't massively impressed with.  I have a suspicion I was the only person in the country with that view - it's spent six weeks at #1 and hasn't been out of the top ten in the thirty weeks it's been on the charts.  If it's not the #1 album of the year over here, I'm going to be amazed.  It's also worth mentioning how successful "As It Was" has been - it's had five separate runs at #1 over here totalling ten weeks and FIFTEEN consecutive weeks at the top in the US.

Three VERY different albums - but all interesting.

#16-15 - Two very fine albums
#11-9 - Three albums I spectacularly fail to describe