The Fashionably Late Top 125 of 2019: IDLES

Another rough year corresponded to another bumper crop of excellent music. Once again, my list is huge, because I fell in love with each of these 125 records and found it impossible to not include all of them in my fashionably late list.

I'm choosing to post my favorites in alpha order from A-Z again this year. You'll probably find some records that everyone and their fifth cousin raved about, but I hope you'll also find a few records that might be new to you, and that you'll fall in love with them as much as I have.

My thanks, as always, to the artists who created these records.

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Who: IDLES

What: A Beautiful Thing - IDLES Live at Le Bataclan

When: December 2019

Where: Partisan Records

Why: "We built this album, and we built this tour, with love and compassion." So sayeth Joe Talbot in the middle of opening track "Colossus." Indeed, IDLES is full of love, for each other, for their fans, and for the people they want to lift up through the messaging of their music. And as you'll hear, that love is reciprocated by the folks who pack their gigs and sing the band's lyrics back with heartfelt abandon. This live album, recorded in December 2018 at the legendary Paris venue Le Bataclan, does a fine job of capturing that love - as well as offering those who haven't yet seen this Bristolian bunch live a glimpse at just how raw, intense, and beautifully brutal they are on stage.

[posted 3.27.20]