My Top Albums - August 2017 ｡ ♬ * ★

Here's a nifty graphic showing my nine top albums over the last month (made with tapmusic). Let's talk about them.

1. Jonghyun - She Is

This album is so smooth, blending some funk and jazz style into an overall relaxing yet rather soulful whole. The track 'Moon' always makes me think of lying in a bath or something. Just super comforting. And there's a mysterious space-y feel too.

2. Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless

This is one of my favourite albums of all time. It combines a bustling yet gentle synth sound with a steampunk soundscape (machinery/radio noises, tech references) and a big in-album universe feel. It's rare that I listen to an album and imagine a vast world for it, but with this one you have to. Thomas Dolby is an immense storyteller.

3. Chairlift - Does You Inspire You

I love the way Chairlift include an element of parable in some of their songs here. 'Planet Health' describes a creepy utopia built on health-related buzzwords which we travel through with an increasing melancholy. The vocals, sounds, and concepts on this album are exquisitely intertwined, and of course this album gave us 'Bruises', a song sort of about tenderly treating small wounds but a song that also cuts into some complex emotion that maybe can't be put into words.

4. SHINee - I'm Your Boy

This is SHINee's third Japanese album and there's something about the cover I really like (notice how it almost blends in to Jonghyun's album above, a nice bit of serendipity). There is a lot going on here, but mostly it is a really solid pop album with a sprinkling of wackiness (Key's 'WA HA HA HA' laugh right at the beginning of the opening track gets me every time, and then you have 'Picasso' as a whole - what a song). This was a strange era for SHINee, but this album's overall composition makes it one of their best for me.

5. Paramore - Riot!

I've been enjoying Paramore's new, St. Vincent-esque album, but I always have this unending nostalgia for the album that shot them straight onto the cover of Kerrang! magazine forevermore. I love the energy, the great choruses, and the seamless tracklist on this album, and I will forever.

6. Picky Picnic - Ha! Ha! Tarachine

This is the definitive Picky Picnic album, with all their spooky synth kitchen children chaos sound perfectly captured. Sounds like if Devo were schoolchildren in a haunted house. It's the best.

7. Chairlift - Moth

Firstly, this is one of the prettiest album covers I have ever seen in my life (made by artist Rebecca Bird), and secondly: Chairlift continue with the wonderfully laced together sound they had conjured like secret magic from the beginning with this utter beauty of an album. They did well in retaining their intimate and close feel, whilst bringing songs out for a bigger and almost more disco-like sound. Favourites from this one are 'Ch-Ching' and 'Moth to the Flame' - both intensely danceable tracks.

8. Dolly Mixture - Demonstration Tapes

This always creeps quickly up my charts because it has quite a lot of very short songs, but regardless I love this album. It serves more as a collection, but it's the perfect avenue for Dolly Mixture as it feels like a sleepover or a jump around the bedroom for a homemade school disco. There's a hint of twee, but for me this mostly feels more matter of fact in delivery than twee or saccharine. There's an honesty in the unfiltered sound, and when you get to the spoken middle section of 'How Come You're Such A Hit With The Boys, Jane? it's its own great reward.

9. Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame

One of the many things I love about Depeche Mode is the burgeoning sweetness that crawls through their dark and cloudy songs. This album is a fantastic example of this. 'See You' in particular has such a childlike pleading to it. This album oozes secrets and wheat fields (and a good harsh synth).

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I wonder what albums I'll be listening to most over the next month. Any suggestions or predictions? Please leave them in the comments, or over here on last.fm.