One of the great dilemmas for me in creating a best songs (or albums) of the year list is that while I spend all year amassing favorites, inevitably I come across new music right at the end of the year that blows my mind, typically after reading someone else's list. Is it fair to a song that I've loved for six months or more to share space with a song I heard for the first time this week?
Case in point. Yesterday, Pitchfork published their Top 50 Albums of the Year list. Scanning the list, I came across the #17 ranked album It's A Beautiful Place by Brooklyn via Chicago duo Water From Your Eyes and Arielle Gordon's brilliant review that was so evocative that I immediately had to listen to the album. She wrote:
That mysterious girl in your math class—the one who’s always carving the Anarchy A into her desk—is looking at you. She has a cassette tape in her hand with your name on it. Do you accept? Of course you do. Cramming it into your Walkman, a shimmering and strange world comes into view: Stereolab’s Dots and Loops, Slint’s Spiderland, and Smog’s Knock Knock combined into an ecstatic kaleidoscope. You’re listening to It’s a Beautiful Place, the exquisite new record from Water From Your Eyes. Ten songs beamed in from some far-off land of power pop, electronica, and grunge, the album proves that the band sounds far greater than the sum of its two-person lineup. “So, what’d you think?” the girl asks the next day. “I think we should start a band.”
That mysterious girl in my math class was Ginny Kao. She wasn't so much mysterious as effortlessly cool and in her defense, would never deface school property. But in the fall of 1986, in Mr. Dibari's Geometry class, she gave me a cassette of R.E.M.'s Lifes Rich Pageant and it changed my life forever. Am I likely Ms. Gordon's senior by at least 25 years? Yes. Does this make me feel old? A little bit. Did I listen to the album on my Walkman? Most certainly - this was around the time that I upgraded to one of the yellow plastic ones that were allegedly waterproof. So, it was with this memory at the front of my mind that I listened to It's A Beautiful Place.
After ten listens in the last 24 hours, this is a bonkers album and the second track "Life Signs" is quickly competing with Snocaps' "Doom" as my favorite track of the year. Honestly, these two songs could not be more different - "Life Signs" is so complex, like three completely different songs oddly patched together to create a single magnificient piece; "Doom" is the most hauntingly beautiful song on the Crutchfield twins' brilliant self-titled album (and my album of the year). So, there you have it - at tie at the top on my list.
The other songs are assemblage of old favorites with strong releases in 2025 (Superchunk, Neko Case, Sharon Van Etten, Wednesday), newer discoveries (Bummer Camp, Sharp Pins, Wet Leg), and the greatest live band on Planet Earth (Perennial). One bonus track reissued this year by Sleepytime Trio, a band formed 30 years ago at James Madison University, where coincidentally my son will be graduating from next May. No, none of this makes me feel old.
Big love, Mike
