Note: The original version of this post was so huge it broke the page, so I’m reposting in sets of 100 albums. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Original idea by Pier-Luc Boivin.

2019 is officially over, folks! And one of you wanted a top 2019 albums of 2019. Fortunately, since I keep track of the albums I listen to, and I’ve listened to a little over this number of albums, I can indulge this seemingly absurd request. But before I go on, let me ramble on a bit and give you some statistics from this year.

Exit Teen, Enter Ni

How many albums, exactly, I’ve listened to this year? My spreadsheet tells me 2,302. This is definitely more than most people, and probably borders on being pathological, but this number includes a few singles, too, but they certainly don’t bring the number down to below 2,250. In time, all the music from 2019 that I’ve listened to and kept track of makes for a grand total of 97,105 minutes and 59 seconds, or 67 days, 10 hours, 25 minutes, and 59 seconds. That’s a huge playlist, for sure, but puny in comparison to the cumulative 243 days and 8 hours of average waking time in a year. But, considering that this time consists only of albums from 2019 that I’ve liked enough to put in my spreadsheet, and not the countless others I’ve listened to excerpts of before deciding not to include them and albums from previous years (or from 2020!), I believe it makes for a substantial and impressive amount of time.

I’ve sometimes felt discouraged and disheartened by the ceaseless discharge of albums flooding in. There were even times where I wondered about calling it quits. This time will come, someday, but, for now, I can still keep going on: I’m single, with no kids, and my job schedule allows me enough time to keep doing it.

2019 in Graphs

Here’s a few graphs that represent my year in music from various aspects.

So, the first graph here shows the number of releases I’ve kept track of (grey and gold) and the number of them I’ve reviewed (gold) per month. While the number of absolute releases varied with each month, the number of reviews stayed practically the same, except for April and November, which seem to have had more albums reviewed than the rest, at 37 each, while the least reviewed month is December, with 17 albums reviewed. I reviewed about 15 % of albums on every given month, up to a high of about 20 % for June and down to a low of 9 % for October, which was the month with the highest number of releases in my sheet for 2019.

This makes for a total of 335 releases that were reviewed or covered in some way on the website this year, an average of about 28 per month, or almost one per day! For comparison, the grand total of albums from 2019 I’ve tracked amounts to an average of over 6 new albums every day.

The second graph is quite striking. It shows the amount of releases I’ve tracked and covered per day of the week they’ve come out on. As in previous years, we see a huge preference towards Friday, for releases. This, as stated before by many people, stems from an industry practice that became widespread and that is still pervasive. My own reviews hover around 15 % of the total number of albums on each release day, except for those that come out on Sundays and Mondays, which get reviewed about 10 and 9 % of the time, respectively.

If we look at figure 3, we see that my 2019 was completely dominated by jazz, with my top listened-to genre being jazz fusion, which I admit to using pretty liberally. Nonetheless, “jazz” appears in five of the top six subgenre categories of the year, cohabiting with progressive rock, which is somewhat surprising to me, since I don’t have many recollections of great progressive rock albums from this year. I’ve also listened to more contemporary classical music than I did progressive metal, which is another surprise, but a nice one, since I’ve expressed in the past years how I wanted to focus more on this in particular.

I think that’s about all that I can extract from my spreadsheet and that’s somewhat interesting or relevant.

Top 2019 Albums of 2019

Given the unhealthy amount of albums within this ridiculous top-2019, most of it will go unranked. It will, however, be divided into three parts: the non-reviewed albums, the reviewed albums, and a ranked top 20 at the very top (or bottom of the page). The unranked portions will be sorted chronologically, then alphabetically. So, without further ado, let’s begin the festivities!

Part I: 2019-1920

Wednesday, 31 December

Rhandu Lopez’s Ridiculous Tempo – Act Ⅱ: Odd Life

44:48

jazz fusion

PR, Brazil

Independent

Masaé Gimbayashi, Fabrice Hélias, and Thierry Waziniak – Motian’s Traces

40:00

modern jazz

France

Independent

Glass Noose – No More Dignity

40:55

indie rock, math rock

Chicago, Illinois

5:45 Media

Dead Neanderthals – Mankind

13:51

experimental post-rock

Nĳmegen, Netherlands

Dave Nasty & A Serrano – Unfair

41:12

grindcore, noise

New Jersey

Harvestman

Dave Nasty & A Serrano – Cannibal Suite

31:45

grindcore, noise

New Jersey

Harvestman

Monday, 30

Hashtag Ensemble – Pierwsze dowództwo

55:07

contemporary classical

Warsaw, Poland

Dux

Hashtag Ensemble – Openings of the Eye

68:23

contemporary classical

Warsaw, Poland

Independent

Cécile Andrée – Nature

46:34

modern jazz

France

Independent

Sunday, 29

Wolfgang Heisig & Jan Klare – Heisig-Klare

29:41

contemporary classical

Essen, Germany

Umland

Saturday, 28

Szilárd Mezei Solo – Falling Buildings

37:12

avant-garde jazz

Serbia

Independent

Friday, 27

Koromač – Kontrapunk

46:05

experimental jazz

Cerkno, Slovenia

Independent

Thursday, 26

Nathan Blehar & Tony Falco – The Emperor, the Empress, and the King of Swords

31:08

avant-garde jazz

Greenfield, Massachusetts

Independent

An Isolated Mind – An Isolated Mind

32:31

post-black metal

Eureka, California

Vigor Deconstruct

Wednesday, 25

Prog jazz do absurdo – Como o sistema temperado arruinou a harmonia

35:28

avant-garde jazz

SP, Brazil

Mr. Snow’s Black Box Series – Ⅱ: Who by Fire?

27:26

experimental electro

Alaska

Mr. Snow!

Lou Kelly – Junk City Rejects

13:00

progressive rock

Ukiah, California

Independent

Foi – 保護者 (Bǎohù zhě) / Guardian

12:08

progressive metal

Bengaluru, India

Independent

Tuesday, 24

The Drag – The Drag

49:29

avant-garde jazz

Washington, D.C.

Independent

Mugxtsu – Moonless Sky, Volume 1

31:32

experimental hip-hop, hardcore

Montréal, Québec

Independent

Dietrich Petzold, Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues, and Jan Roder – Get Your Own Picture

62:29

free improvisation, contemporary classical

Lisbon, Portugal

Independent

Cult of Erinyes – Æstivation

43:41

atmospheric black metal

Brussel, Belgium

Musical Excrements

Arctic Plant – The Black Riders

61:24

progressive metal

Bayreuth, Germany

Independent

Monday, 23

Rob Ford Explorer – Buh Bye

12:47

math rock

Reno, Nevada

Independent

Dave Nasty – Textures of the South Pole​-​Aitken Basin

41:06

noise

Chicago, Illinois

Independent

Adam Neely – Christmas Microtonal Lo​-​Fi Hip Hop

11:06

hip-hop, experimental electro

New York, New York

Independent

Sunday, 22

Владимир Лучанский (Vladimir Lučanskij) – Гелиогабал (Geliogabal) / Heliogabalus

21:03

free improvisation

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Nachtstück

Xotla – Pico Metric

49:49

experimental electro

Melbourne, Australia

Independent

Saturday, 21

Vctre – Palindrome

27:47

experimental electro

Birmingham, Alabama

Independent

Tylor Dory Trio – Unsought Salvation

61:46

progressive rock, hard rock

Edmonton, Alberta

Independent

Timothée Quost, Ishmael Ali, and Bill Harris – Dawá

39:57

avant-garde jazz

New York, New York

Amalgam

Kalya Scintilla – Gaian Code

100:05

psybient, bass

Australia

Independent

Copal Quintet – Ahoo!

63:12

free improvisation

Germany

Independent

Chronologist – Solstice Ⅱ

14:31

progressive metalcore

Austin, Texas

Independent

Friday, 20

Zayn – Monolit, Part Ⅲ: You

14:06

progressive rock

Croatia

Independent

Terry Pack’s Trees – Into the Woods

59:49

big band, jazz fusion

England, UK

New Leaf

Tactus – TⅡ

16:07

progressive metal

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Independent

Ragnar Jónsson, Zofia Tomczyk, and Guðmundur Arnalds – Agalma Ⅲ

42:14

contemporary classical, free improv

Reykjavík, Iceland

Agalma

Mount Vesuvius Death March – Peachy

32:53

math rock

Gadsden, Alabama

Independent

Madara – Odd Perks

9:48

grindcore, deathgrind

Montréal, Québec

Independent

Jean-Michel Leblanc – Variétés narratives

60:55

modern jazz

Montréal, Québec

Independent

Grant the Sun – Sylvain

18:17

progressive post-metal

Oslo, Norway

Mas-Kina

Eartheater & Leya – Angel Lust

14:08

experimental electro, folk

Queens, New York

Pan

Thursday, 19

Sarah Rossy – The Conclusion

30:17

modern jazz

Montréal, Québec

Independent

Ouroboros – Porte moi

28:50

avant-garde jazz

Paris, France

Independent

Nylithia – Goddamn, Type 1

22:53

progressive thrash metal

Vancouver, British Columbia

Independent

Wednesday, 18

Fatal – Music of the Spheres

47:12

progressive metal, trance

Russia

Independent

Tuesday, 17

Rïga – Musicam ubique

24:21

experimental electro

Rennes, France

Independent

Monday, 16

Atrium – Dither

34:42

progressive metal

Provo, Utah

Independent

Age of Atlas – Between Now and Never

30:18

progressive rock, post-hardcore

Hull, UK

Independent

Sunday, 15

Sea Mosquito – Inferences

28:50

experimental black metal

London, UK

Independent

Non- – Artifact

11:41

blackgaze

Boston, Massachusetts

Independent

Fabian Dudek – Creating Meaning

46:43

avant-garde jazz

Cologne, Germany

Fixcel

Saturday, 14

The Richmond Avant-Improv Collective – Häxan: Cinema Paradiso, Volume I

32:40

experimental jazz, free jazz

Richmond, Virginia

Thirsty Leaves Music

The Echogenic – Into the Shepherd’s Maw

27:37

progressive rock

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Independent

Friday, 13

ミニマリスト (Minimarisuto) / Mnmlst – Anmls

19:19

progressive metalcore

Denver, Colorado

Independent

Wreath of Tongues – Penance

14:55

deathgrind

New York, New York

Independent

Whalesong – Radiance of a Thousand Suns

105:02

experimental post-metal

Tarnowskie Góry, Poland

Independent

Torino Unlimited Noise – Jason

31:31

electro-jazz

Torino, Italy

Jazz-o-Tech

Reptilian Civilian – Oblitus scientia

41:09

technical deathcore

Brisbane, Australia

Independent

Nova – Veniamo dal cielo

34:03

progressive black metal

Trieste, Italy

ATMF

Mosaic – Secret Ambrosian Fire

48:42

folk black metal

Gotha, Germany

Eisenwald

Mono & AA Williams – Exit in Darkness

15:55

post-rock

東京都 (Tōkyōto), Japan

Pelagic

Moleslope – Slope

32:57

jazz fusion, progressive rock

Tokyo, Japan

Dewfall

Moe & Pinquins – Vi som elsket kaos

38:20

noise rock

Oslo, Norway

Independent

Large Unit & Fendika – Ethio Braz

65:22

world fusion

Oslo, Kingdom of Norway

PNL

Incipience – Vehement

22:45

progressive metal

Los Angeles, California

Independent

In Human Form – Ⅲ

47:07

progressive black metal

Italy

I, Voidhanger

Free Nationals – Free Nationals

41:06

R&B, jazz-hop

California

OBE, LLC / Empire

Cosmo Sheldrake – Galápagos

23:55

indie folk

London, UK

Tardigrade

Bureau Berlin – High-Time Seizure

27:25

free improvisation

Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia

Sounds et al.

Barney McAll – An Extra Celestial Christmas

47:23

jazz, classical

New York, New York

Independent

Aperiodic – For

54:47

contemporary classical

New York, New York

New Focus

Alexander Manotskov – 52

61:23

contemporary classical, opera

Moscow, Russia

Fancy Music

Thursday, 12

TBPN – Mémoires de formes

47:55

avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical

Paris, France

Gigantonium

Samuel Morgan – Nicotine Dreams

31:20

jazz pop

Wellington, New Zealand

Independent

Now Ensemble – Spare the Rod!

20:06

contemporary classical

New York

New Amsterdam

Grey Wing Ensemble – Ex machina

112:53

contemporary classical

Perth, Australia

Tone List

Grey Wing Ensemble – Artificial Field

119:25

contemporary classical

Perth, Australia

Tone List

Exitpost – Two Dreamers

26:09

synthwave, dream pop

Los Angeles, California

Zoom Lens

Alberto Braida – In Love with the Moon

44:05

free improvisation

Italy

We Insist!

Wednesday, 11

コシュニエ (Ko shu nie) / Cö shu nie – Pure

33:02

J-rock

Osaka, Japan

Sony

Altesia – Paragon Circus

56:46

progressive metal

Bordeaux, France

Independent

Tuesday, 10

Yaca – Ⅱ

58:44

free improvisation

Santiago, Chile

Ce chemin est le bon

Flaming Row – The Pure Shine

73:19

progressive rock, rock opera

Osterode Am Harz, Germany

Independent

Filipe Teixeira Trio – Tao

45:25

modern jazz

Porto, Portugal

Independent

Monday, 9

Widek – The Garden of Existence

50:04

progressive metal

Poland

Independent

The Great Sabatini – Dirge of the Cruel

32:24

noise, drone

Montréal, Québec

Independent

Mads Vinding, Marilyn Mazur, and Jean-Michel Pilc – Composing

60:09

avant-garde jazz

Denmark

Storyville

Joel Kent – Ghost Ship

29:01

djent, nu prog

Boston, Massachusetts

Independent

Eric West Group – EP

17:33

modern jazz

Toronto, Ontario

Independent

Abelia – Kalamari

21:22

math rock

Dallas, Texas

Independent

Sunday, 8

Jons – Jons

61:06

free improvisation, avant-prog

Sacramento, California

Independent

Alberto Cavenati’s Treifekter – 13

42:14

avant-garde jazz

Berlin, Germany

Trouble in the East

Saturday, 7

Tablopan – La cola del pan

41:17

free improvisation

New York, New York

Falcon Gumba

Postcards from Arkham – Øakvyl

38:10

post-rock

Czechia

Metalgate

Gourmand – Emanate

10:28

progressive death metal

Kansas City, Missouri

Independent

Fucm Hawj – Steeple

45:49

contemporary classical

New York, New York

Chris Pitsiokos

Feather – Convalescence

46:34

progressive metal

Dijon, France

Independent

9 Horses – Blood from a Stone

24:03

modern jazz, classical

New York, New York

Sunnyside