The Fashionably Late Top 125 of 2019: Frankie Cosmos

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: Frankie Cosmos

What: Close It Quietly

When: September 2019

Where: Sub Pop

Why: With its 21 short, beautifully wry songs, Close It Quietly feels like an album in the vein of The Magnetic Fields. Just a bit more playful. But Frankie Cosmos, too, gets right to the heart with disturbing accuracy - poignancy mixed with realism, equally pretty and gritty. Greta Kline's flushed-cheek vocals warble in a way that expresses the vulnerability that comes from an abundance of emotion and the need to share things at just the right moment. From reflecting on things that shouldn't have happened to touching on the awkwardness of a relationship reduced to just a name on Gchat, these songs are acutely relatable. Each gem of a song has plenty of clever lyrics and a taut, kicky energy that make this record hard to ignore.

[posted 3.21.20]