EIGHT of the 10 albums of the year are by female artists, with Lana Del Rey topping the list, writes Nan Spowart.
The BBC compiled the chart from 30 end-of-year lists published by the world’s most influential music publications and broadcasters, assigning each record points based on their position in each list.
Scot Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent failed to make the cut despite being one of the best-selling albums of 2019. He wasn’t the only popular singer ignored by critics as Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project and Taylor Swift’s Lover, which have sold in excess of three million copies worldwide, did not make the top 10.
Del Rey’s fifth album, Norman Rockwell, took the top spot, while Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep came second.
Billed as “a folk record with a little surf twist”, Del Rey’s album topped the UK charts in August, and recently earned the US star her first Grammy nomination for album of the year.
It marks a seismic change from her previous albums, where she cast herself as the helpless heroine, dolled up and dragged around by men who were ultimately more interested in themselves and their video games.
In the record she stands up for herself as well as touching on topics like political anxiety, climate change, vacuous celebrity culture and even the false alarm of a nuclear attack on Hawaii.
READ MORE: Sturgeon’s top books of 2019 revealed
The record ends on a fragile note of optimism. “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman to have, but I have it,” she whispers. “Yeah, I have it.”
The singer has described it as an album about “coming into one’s own, and choosing to laugh rather than cry.” She said she was grateful to the BBC for compiling the list.
“This was such a meaningful, fun record to make. I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s lovely to see it receiving so much attention from friends and critics.”
She added: “Every word and melody came in a joyfully unexpected way and from the bottom of my heart, so I’m grateful for Jack [Antonoff] for helping me make this record and looking forward to inspiration striking me again for the next one.”
One of the album’s tracks, The Greatest, also featured in the critics’ top 10 songs of the year alongside Lil Nas X’s country-rap crossover Old Town Road and FKA Twigs’s devastating ballad Cellophane. But Eilish’s unconventional pop hit Bad Guy was the overall winner after taking pole position in seven separate “best of 2019” lists.
Her album champions the strange, the misfits and the misunderstood, capturing the hopes, fears and vulnerabilities of an entire generation.
“The genius in this record is its unaffected relatability,” said critic Yasmin Cowan.
In the best album list Tyler, The Creator came third with Igor, while fourth was Ghosteen by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Magdalene by FKA Twigs was fifth. FKA Twigs is the stage name of Tahliah Barnett who had major surgery to remove six tumours from her uterus in 2017. At the same time, she was dealing with the “all-encompassing” pain of breaking up with actor Robert Pattinson - a relationship that had made her an unwilling tabloid fixture.
The critics said the singer’s physical and emotional suffering had merged to “devastating” effect on her second album.
Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood was sixth, Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors came seventh and Ariana Grande took eighth place with Thank U, Next. Lizzo’s Cuz I Love You and Brittany Howard’s Jaime were ninth and 10th respectively.
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