January Albums of the Month
Years may change, but your local blog team still has immaculate taste.
Happy New Year! The weather outside is frightful, but our ears are just fine. Our dutiful writers have mailed in the albums that have brought us into 2024 and we’re glad to be sharing them with you. If you like what you see here, you should rush to WOBC’s live stream, which is bringing daily winter term programming from 8AM to midnight.
Finn Sipes
Faye Webster (feat. Lil Yachty) — Lego Ring
playful, whimsical, sweeping
If you don’t like this album because of Lil Yachty’s contribution you’re an idiot loser. I have heard TOO MUCH HATE over Yachty being influenced by and exploring beyond his typical genre. I have heard TOO MUCH HATE on Faye Webster, celebrated for her distinct sound being maintained through diverse music, for making a sillier track. WHERE IS YOUR SENSE OF WHIMSY? WHERE IS YOUR DESIRE FOR PLAY? This is like when Mistki dropped Should’ve Been Me and everyone was lame about it. Open your hearts and minds to this album, not only for the gorgeous sounds of Lifetime and But Not Kiss (some of the best Faye songs I have heard in a while) but also for the silly pop jam found within Lego Ring.
If you hate fun and joy, this album is not for you.
Also everyone PLEASE watch the music video for But Not Kiss I beg.
Al Herrera
Reneé Rapp — Snow Angel
confessional, danceable, heartbreaking
If you thought Reneé Rapp was the standout of the new Mean Girls adaptation, then you should check out her 2023 debut album Snow Angel. The tracks showcase Rapp’s powerhouse vocals and honest (sometimes biting) lyricism. In a 2023 interview with Pitchfork, Rapp listed artists she was listening to and Kacey Musgraves came as no surprise. Despite working in different genres, the two share a talent for creating beautifully layered musical stories from heartbreaking relationships. My standout tracks are “So What Now”, and “Pretty Girls.” As an extra treat I recommend checking out “Tummy Hurts (feat. Coco Jones) - Remix” off the deluxe version. If her interviews haven’t won you over yet, her talent for tender songwriting will. This debut is a promising development of Rapp's career as an artist and I’m excited to see what comes next as she hones in on her unique sound.
Bash Cruz
Pile - dripping
thundering, mutated, alive
Only a group of rowdy Bostonian boys could whip up a record that’s uglier than half-melted snow in the harsh winter light. This album conjures up pus, poison, guttural vocal acrobatics and a nasty attitude, none of which compromise the band’s mastery of dynamics. Never has an album been so intricately constructed to sound like cold spit in the face.
Laura Weinstein
Majesty Crush - Love 15
This 1993 album is the perfect shoegaze soundtrack to new beginnings this month. Obsessive and sultry, the name of the band and album fit perfectly with Love 15’s themes. David Stroughter’s vocals on “Seles” perfectly exemplify the sexy, anticipatory sound the band fostered on this album, but for me, a lot of Majesty Crush’s appeal comes from their blues-influenced drum parts. Joseph Lafata’s addictive drum beat and Hobey Echlin’s hypnotizing bassline on “No. 1 Fan” caused me to revisit this track time and time again this month. So if you’re crushing on someone or need a new shoegaze band to listen to, give Majesty Crush’s Love 15 a listen.
Owen Neaman
The Replacements — Tim (Let it Bleed Edition)
vulnerable, spare, loose
The Replacements were one of my favorite bands to listen to this past year, so the recent reissue of their seminal 1985 album Tim caught my eye as soon as it came out. With crisper and tighter mixes of the album’s power-pop and punk offerings (courtesy of veteran mixer Ed Stasium), this reissue makes the album an even more satisfying listen. The guitar parts pop out more, the bass is far more present, and the drums no longer sound quiet and tinny. I found a new love for the ballads on this album, especially the closer “Here Comes a Regular,” which is a quintessential winter song for me. Fresh mixes of tracks like the raucous “Dose of Thunder” and the incessantly catchy “Little Mascara” breathe new life into the songs of Paul Westerberg and company, while retaining the grit and edge of the original record. The Let it Bleed Edition is unquestionably the reissue that Tim needed, and fans of the original record will enjoy this even more.
Eliana Simpson
BADBADNOTGOOD — IV
suspenseful, unexpected, grounded
As far as I’m concerned, the month of January is a fever dream. The absence of a consistent schedule on top of the rapidly changing weather makes me lose all concept of time. I’ve been all over the place and my listening reflects that. After my hectic finals frenzy and I’ve been attempting to gracefully scale back on my alt/nu metal intake. Thankfully, BADBADNOTGOOD’s album IV soothed my brain with the scratchiest of all scratches. I don’t typically listen to music that is primarily instrumental, but after revisiting this album, I see that I’ve been missing out. IV invokes a series of emotions as the tone is entirely reinvented in each track. Layered, rhythmic melodies are added to, hushed, intensified, and eventually embellished by awesome sax solos. The dynamics. Go. Crazy. Even if you’re someone who limits themselves to songs jam-packed with lyrics, I strongly suggest that you venture into this album. I had my “Time Moves Slow” phase, soon followed by my “In Your Eyes” phase, but my favorites right now have to be “Speaking Gently”, “Confessions Pt. II”, and “Lavender”, featuring KAYTRANADA. I may have also chosen “Chompy’s Paradise”, the sixth track, as the object of study for my music theory final, just so that I’d have an excuse to hyperfixate on the song for weeks. Get this — I’m still not tired of it. You get the point. Give into the hype.
Shaye Frenkel
Kiko El Crazy – Pila’e Teteo
vibrant, energetic, playful
In contrast with the slow, dreary month of January, where I’ve found myself trapped at home “working” on my winter term project, my personal soundtrack has been a bit more upbeat. Kiko El Crazy is one of the most influential Latin artists of the past decade. Along with mainstay acts like El Alfa, he has helped propel the genre of Dembow beyond its home of the Dominican Republic and into the ears of eager listeners worldwide. Closely related to fellow Urbano genre Reggaeton, which has seen unprecedented success with artists like Bad Bunny and Rosalia achieving international stardom, Dembow focuses more on faster rhythms and playful, upbeat vocals filled with puns, Dominican slang, and onomatopoeias. With his new album, Pila’e Teteo, Kiko El Crazy doubles down on what makes Dembow so addicting. While my Spanish isn’t great, and there’s so much slang that Google Translate is lost, the sheer fun of the music keeps me coming back. Thanks to my girlfriend’s integral translation help, I’ve found the lyrics to be raunchy yet playful, inviting the listener to a world of dancing and partying. The beats contained on this album are fluid and punchy; they have this drive to them that you don’t see in a lot of US Hip Hop. The album has a multitude of features, with artists from all over the Latin American music sphere lending vocals. El Alfa, the biggest name in Dembow, joins forces with Kiko El Crazy for the track “Pichirry,” where over a minimalist drum-focused beat he repeats in his signature high register “Me encanta ese culo má que el Pico Pollo Joa,” which roughly translates to “I love that ass more than Pico Pollo Joa,” (a chicken restaurant in the DR). This line is delivered in a very tongue-in-cheek way, with a healthy dose of humor that can be found throughout the album. The accompanying video is equally fun, showing the two artists dancing their way through the aforementioned chicken restaurant, accompanied by women twerking in chicken costumes, as they sing their ode to culos. This is a very approachable release for people who perhaps haven’t given the vast world of Latin music a chance yet.
Sophie Montague
Angie McMahon – Light, Dark, Light Again
grounded, uplifting, thematic
The second LP from Melbourne-based musician Angie McMahon (released this past October) deserves to be listened to in full and in order. Each song packs an individual punch — but as a whole, the record tells a story of constant overcoming and nonlinear progress. Light, Dark, Light Again is not uplifting in the sense that it is happy. It’s a body of work that breathes, reflecting the waves of emotion that come with being human. McMahon has the energy of The War on Drugs, a voice like Florence Welch, and the sentiment of artists like Maggie Rogers. Her writing is powerfully connected to the natural world. She blends yearning country ballads with anthemic alternative rock, sonically supporting her claim that the ups and downs of the world work in cohesion. I can best characterize its listening experience by the fact that McMahon has described her repetition of the line “I Am Already Enough” as punk. So if you think internal growth and healing are badass, this is the album for you. It’s the perfect mood to start off the year.
Jonah Covell
Jason Molina – Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go
try, haunting, immanence
This is music for 4:59 AM. It will suffocate you, but it will also steady your breathing. Recorded two years before its 2006 release, Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go featured Molina recording alone without his bands Magnolia Electric Co. and the preceding Songs: Ohia. On first listen, these songs feel almost like outtakes, rendered unstable by their lack of clear structure and uncompromising gray palette, but to call them sketches would be erroneous. Molina sings his crushed, often hopeless words with so much nuance (and occasional raw power) that it's hard to imagine these songs existing at a live show or in any other space or version. Every line builds on the album's repeated themes and images — Molina's obsessions with owls and rain occur here as much as on any of his other projects, but never have they seemed to constitute entire worlds. The bare sound of the album is reflected in the songs' compact, though unpredictable, structures. Of these nine songs, only the title track stretches past the five-minute mark, an anomaly in Molina's catalog. The brief songs and focused intensity results in a listening experience that is paradoxically alienating and accessible at once. While I hope not to be in a Molina headspace this time next month, this is a great album.
edited + compiled by Jonah Covell