CJ's Yearly Top-Ten Album Lists

Elaine and I have been sending out a holiday letter to friends and family for many years now, and for much of that time I've included a Top-Ten list of albums that I've enjoyed. In 2017, a particularly busy year left us without space for it in the letter, so I figured I'd throw them all online.

I'll be linking to albums or songs when I can, though I expect that the links will grow stale pretty quickly in today's internet. C'est la vie! Links to Bandcamp will generally offer full-album streaming (and really easy buying options!); links elsewhere may just be single tracks.

Relatedly, since 2005, I've been running my own personal music tracking system which keeps track of what I listen to, and can generate some charts which are of interest probably only to myself. Interested readers (who??) will probably find plenty of discrepancies between these top-ten lists and what I'd actually listened to the most during the year, using the statistics section. Here's what I've been listening to within the past few hours, if I've been at the computer:

Regardless, on with the lists!

2024

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2024
(in order of acquisition)

1. Sleater-Kinney / Little Rope
2. Chelsea Wolfe / She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
3. I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME / Gloom Division
4. Kim Gordon / The Collective
5. St. Vincent / All Born Screaming
6. Beth Gibbons / Lives Outgrown
7. Lip Critic / Hex Dealer
8. Curtis Eller's American Circus / Another Nice Mess
9. My Brightest Diamond / Fight the Real Terror
10. Look Mum No Computer / Double Barrelled Decadence

Bonus: I didn't feel like a downtempo semi-acoustic Nine Inch Nails covers album was eligible for a top-ten spot, but do go listen to Allie Goertz's Peeled Back, which is incredible and honestly probably deserves to be on the list anyway.

2023

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2023
(in order of acquisition)

1. Underworld / Beaucoup Fish
2. Fever Ray / Radical Romantics
3. IAMX / Fault Lines¹
4. Angelspit / The Bastard Gods
5. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Original Score)
6. Horrendous / Ontological Mysterium
7. Ghost of Vroom / 3
8. Speaker Music / Techxodus
9. Mitski / The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We
10. HEALTH / RAT WARS

2022

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2022
(in order of acquisition)

1. Anna Von Hausswolff / Live at Montreux Jazz Festival
2. Tanya Tagaq / Animism
3. HEALTH / DISCO4 :: PART II
4. Jack White / Fear of the Dawn
5. Angelspit / Blood Death Ivory
6. Red Snapper / Everybody Is Somebody
7. Zola Jesus / ARKHON
8. Unwoman / Uncovered Volume 7
9. Lucrecia Dalt / ¡Ay!
10. Backxwash / HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING

2021

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2021
(in order of acquisition)

1. The Gothsicles / Animal Songs
2. Ghost of Vroom / 1
3. Vladislav Delay / Rakka + Rakka II
4. Backxwash / I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES
5. Various / Borderlands 3 OST
6. Danny Elfman / Big Mess
7. HEALTH / VOL.4 :: SLAVES OF FEAR
8. cEvin Key / Resonance
9. They Might Be Giants / BOOK
10. Angelspit / Bang Operative

(I am aware that #3 is a bit of a cheat since there's technically two albums in there. They may as well be a double album, though. Also cheating with the Borderlands 3 OST since that's 13 hours of music, all told. If I had to pick a single "album" from there, though, it'd be the Bounty of Blood soundtrack.)

2020

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2020
(in order of acquisition)

1. Hatari / NEYSLUTRANS
2. Squarepusher / Be Up A Hello
3. World/Inferno Friendship Society / All Borders Are Porous To Cats
4. SKYMELT / Black Future '88 OST
5. Jehnny Beth / To Love is to Live
6. Test Dept / Disturbance
7. Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People / We Are All Terrorists
8. Neil Cicierega / Mouth Dreams
9. Backxwash / God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It
10. I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME / Razzmatazz

Honorable Non-Album Mention: MC Frontalot's delightful little voting-the-fascist-cheeto-out-of-office number "This Is Not A Drill"

2019

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2019
(in order of acquisition)

1. My Brightest Diamond / A Million And One
2. Ladytron / Ladytron
3. Curtis Eller's American Circus / A Poison Melody
4. Amon Tobin / Fear in a Handful of Dust
5. Sunn O))) / Life Metal
6. IAMX / Volatile Times
7. Holly Herndon / PROTO
8. Blanck Mass / Animated Violence Mild
9. Sleater-Kinney / The Center Won't Hold
10. Chelsea Wolfe / Birth of Violence

2018

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2018
(in order of acquisition)

1. Caustic / American Carrion
2. Unwoman / War Stories
3. They Might be Giants / I Like Fun
4. IAMX / Alive in New Light
5. Nine Inch Nails / Bad Witch
6. Sophie / OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES
7. Autechre / NTS Sessions
8. Anna Calvi / Hunter
9. Too Many Zooz / Subway Gawdz
10. Lycia / In Flickers

Bonus: Favorite EP

1. Zoë Keating / Snowmelt

2017

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2017
(in order of acquisition)

1. Amiina / Fantômas
2. Sleigh Bells / Jessica Rabbit
3. Blanck Mass / World Eater
4. Pharmakon / Contact
5. Preservation Hall Jazz Band / So it is
6. LCD Soundsystem / American Dream
7. IAMX / Unfall
8. Chelsea Wolfe / Hiss Spun
9. St. Vincent / MASSEDUCTION
10. Odonis Odonis / No Pop

Bonus: Top Two EPs Acquired in 2017
(seriously, they're so good)

1. Nine Inch Nails / Not The Actual Events
2. Nine Inch Nails / ADD VIOLENCE

2016

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2016
(in order of acquisition)

1. IAMX / Metanoia
2. Caravan Palace / <|°_°|>
3. David Bowie / Blackstar
4. Saul Williams / MartyrLoserKing
5. Roly Porter / Third Law
6. Autechre / elseq
7. Mitski / Puberty 2
8. Radiohead / A Moon Shaped Pool
9. Vektor / Terminal Redux (alas, in 2019, the lead singer from Vektor turned out to be an abusive asshole, which rather spoils this one for me)
10. Regina Spektor / Remember Us To Life

2015

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2015
(in order of acquisition)

1. Various (Jason Webley and Friends) / Margaret
2. Sleater-Kinney / No Cities to Love
3. Aphex Twin / Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2
4. Godspeed You! Black Emperor / Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress
5. They Might Be Giants / Glean
6. Squarepusher / Damogen Furies
7. Chelsea Wolfe / Abyss
8. The Dead Weather / Dodge and Burn
9. Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People / BOUNTIFUL
10. Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas / Secret Evil

Bonus: Favorite EP

1. I, Parasite / A Diminished Tomorrow

2014

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2014
(in order of acquisition)

1. Curtis Eller's American Circus / How to Make it in Hollywood
2. St. Vincent / St. Vincent
3. The Phenomenauts / Escape Velocity
4. Jack White / Lazaretto
5. Peter Murphy / Lion
6. Neil Cicierega / Mouth Silence
7. The Raveonettes / Pe'ahi
8. Death From Above 1979 / The Physical World
9. My Brightest Diamond / This Is My Hand
10. Mike Doughty / Stellar Motel

2013

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2013
(in reverse-alphabetical order)

1. Unwoman / The Fires I Started
2. They Might Be Giants / Nanobots
3. Skinny Puppy / Weapon
4. Sigur Rós / Kveikur
5. Preservation Hall Jazz Band / That's It!
6. Nine Inch Nails / Hesitation Marks
7. Julianna Barwick / Nepenthe
8. How To Destroy Angels / Welcome Oblivion
9. Cherry Poppin' Daddies / White Teeth, Black Thoughts
10. Android Lust / Crater vol.1

2012

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2012
(in order of acquisition)

1. Skinny Puppy / HanDover
2. Caravan Palace / Panic
3. Deaf Center / Owl Splinters
4. Jason Webley / In This Light
5. Squarepusher / Ufabulum
6. Sigur Rós / Valtari
7. Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra / Theatre Is Evil
8. Dessa / A Badly Broken Code
9. Various Artists / Pneuma
10. Godspeed You! Black Emperor / Allelujah! Don't Bend Ascend

2011

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2011
(in order of acquisition)

1. The Dodos / No Color
2. The World/Inferno Friendship Society / The Anarchy and the Ecstasy
3. "Weird Al" Yankovic / Alpocalypse
4. They Might Be Giants / Join Us
5. Mike Doughty / Yes And Also Yes
6. Mister Heavenly / Out of Love
7. St. Vincent / Strange Mercy
8. Plaid / Scintilli
9. Zola Jesus / Conatus
10. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2010

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2010
(in order of acquisition)

1. Curtis Eller's American Circus / Wirewalkers and Assassins
2. MC Frontalot / Zero Day
3. Mindless Self Indulgence / If
4. Rasputina / Sister Kinderhook
5. Zoë Keating / Into the Trees
6. Android Lust / The Human Animal
7. Caravan Palace / Caravan Palace
8. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross / The Social Network
9. Christ Analogue / Everyday Is Distortion
10. Hecq / steeltongued

2009

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2009
(in order of acquisition)

1. Animal Collective / Merriweather Post Pavillion
2. Fermata / Only Ghosts Remain
3. Regina Spektor / Far
4. Current 93 / Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
5. The Dead Weather / Horehound
6. St. Vincent / Actor
7. the atomica project / Grayscale
8. Jonathan Coulton / Best. Concert. Ever.
9. Various / 5 Years of Hyperdub
10. Venetian Snares / Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett

2008

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2008
(in order of acquisition)

1. Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble / Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
2. The Dodos / Visiter
3. The Phenomenauts / For All Mankind
4. Nine Inch Nails / The Slip
5. Firewater / The Golden Hour
6. deathprod / morals and dogma
7. Sigur Rós / Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
8. TV on the Radio / Dear Science
9. Coil / The New Backwards
10. ohGr / Devils In My Details

2007

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2007
(in order of acquisition)

1. Current 93 / Black Ships Ate The Sky
2. Nine Inch Nails / Year Zero
3. They Might Be Giants / The Else
4. Mama Digdown's Brass Band / Ascona
5. The White Stripes / Icky Thump
6. Rasputina / Oh Perilous World
7. Animal Collective / Strawberry Jam
8. The Fiery Furnaces / Widow City
9. Radiohead / In Rainbows
10. Burial / Untrue

2006

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2006
(in no particular order)

1. Sigur Rós / Takk...
2. Aphex Twin / Chosen Lords
3. Rachel's / systems/layers
4. Slavic Soul Party! / Bigger
5. Regina Spektor / Begin to Hope
6. The Fiery Furnaces / Bitter Tea
7. The Dresden Dolls / Yes, Virginia
8. DeVotchKa / Curse Your Little Heart
9. TV on the Radio / Return to Cookie Mountain
10. Android Lust / Devour, Rise, and Take Flight

2005

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2005
(in alphabetical order by the reverse of the band name)

1. cLOUDDEAD / Ten
2. Shinjuku Thief / Sacred Fury
3. LCD Soundsystem / LCD Soundsystem
4. Infected Mushroom / IM the Supervisor
5. Tara Vanflower / my little fire-filled heart
6. The Fiery Furnaces / Blueberry Boat
7. Nine Inch Nails / With Teeth
8. The Dresden Dolls / The Dresden Dolls
9. The Phenomenauts / Re-Entry
10. Mike Doughty / Haughty Melodic

An Honorable Mention goes to Supersystem's "Always Never Again," for their song "Born Into The World," easily my #1 track for the year.

2004

CJ's Top Ten Albums Acquired in 2004
(right now, anyway)

1. Björk Guðmundsdóttir & tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar / Gling-Gló
2. DJ? Acucrack / Mako vs. Geist
3. Download / Effector
4. Firewater / Psychopharmacology
5. Mike VanPortfleet / Beyond the Horizon Line
6. They Might Be Giants / The Spine
7. The Crystal Method / Legion of Boom
8. The Phenomenauts / Rockets and Robots
9. Tom Waits / Real Gone
10. Skinny Puppy / The Greater Wrong of the Right

It seems 2004 was probably the start of the album lists, though we first started the holiday letters in 2001. My tastes from 2003 and earlier must forever remain shrouded in mystery! Though, you know, you could expect some Nine Inch Nails to show up in there somewhere.

Changelog