Album rankings won't save you
Also, find out what Noah Kahan, Hozier, Linkin Park, The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac have in common
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In recent years, Rolling Stone has made a business out of making people mad. Their lists incite maximum anger, especially when they rank a certain work in an unusually high place, or shut out an objectively important musician from a list entirely.
Take their 2023 list of the 200 greatest singers of all time. Number one was Aretha Franklin. Yes, agreed. Number 15 was Bob Dylan, one spot ahead of Prince. No comment. Know who wasn’t on the list at all? Celine Dion! People were not having it.
I could go on, from the publication’s 2024 update of the best songs of all time, to writer Rob Sheffield’s ranking of all 274 of Taylor Swift’s songs. (“A Place in This World” is 272, behind all of the songs she performed in “Cats.” Girlhood can’t come to the phone right now. Why? She’s ERASED.)
Now RS released their 250 greatest albums of the 21st century so far. Maybe it’s because I’ve been conscious for all of these releases, but this list felt so random, with a lot of recency bias. Beyonce’s “Lemonade” earned the number one slot. I’m surprised by this, but I also can’t argue with it. Taylor Swift’s “folklore” was number 5—I wouldn’t say it’s even her best album. Same goes for SZA’s “SOS” at number 7—“Ctrl” is one of the greatest albums of all time! (It's #29.)
This is what frustrates me about rankings—how do you properly compare distinct works? And why do we need to? Once someone (a man) asked me (a perfect woman) to choose whether Kendrick Lamar or Taylor Swift is a better songwriter. I refused! They are two different songwriters making two different kinds of music. I alphabetize my year-end lists, inspired by one of my favorite professors, Ben Ratliff, who wrote “The Right Way to Do Year End Lists Is in Alphabetical Order” in 2017:
The problem is not the list itself; it’s the numbers. Take them off and nothing is subordinate to anything else. An unnumbered list is a powerful statement that says this and this and this. Which is the rhythm of life, all of us sifting and considering while being aware that the world can’t be contained. The creative act—for the listmaker and for the reader—is to imagine a space with both Jlin and Protomartyr in it, not to determine which is “better.”
Absurdly ranked lists like Rolling Stone’s instigate debate across social media, which adds traffic for the site, but it’s terrible for engagement—readers scroll down straight to number one. This is very anti “High Fidelity” of me, but I think ranking is bad for music journalism. It isolates readers and discourages curiosity. It makes a publication like RS a source of resentment and bad choices, rather than information and connection. We can have Taylor Swift AND Kendrick. Just listen to the Bad Blood remix!
Love notes
Pitchfork made this album their second “best new music” of 2025, but I can’t decide if I like it. Cameron Winter’s voice disturbs me so much that I keep wanting to listen to it again.
Paramore’s Hayley Williams is releasing her 78-year-old grandfather’s debut album, 50 years after it was recorded.
I still need to pick up a copy of Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist. This review made me even more excited to read it: “Pelly’s most striking contribution is her observation of where Spotify’s incentive structure seems to be pushing us: toward some sort of cyberpunkean cultural future where the platform fully recontextualizes music as means for passive mood regulation, which, as Pelly illustrates, is pretty much how it’s viewed music for years.”
Entertainment data and insights company Luminate put out its 2024 year-end music report. My biggest takeaways:
Music streaming grew by 14% last year
Pop was the fastest-growing genre in 2024, thanks to Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter. 47 female pop artists made up the genre’s top 100 artists, but women made up 63.4% of pop audio streams.
Taylor Swift was the most-streamed songwriter last year, followed by Max Martin, The Weeknd, and Daniel Nigro, who writes with both Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan.
Nearly 1 out of every 17 rock streams in the U.S. was either Noah Kahan, Hozier, Linkin Park, The Beatles, or Fleetwood Mac!
Last year’s most-streamed music documentary was Netflix’s The Greatest Night In Pop. I loved this one and think about it a lot, especially after Quincy Jones’s death last year.
Female pop artists made up 63.4% of pop audio streams last year, led by Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter. Porridge Radio are breaking up, but they have one more EP coming.
The album announcements and new singles keep coming! This week we received confirmation that Samia and Lucy Dacus are putting out albums this spring. And Lucy is bring Katie Gavin on tour!
After they lost their home in the Los Angeles fires, Spencer Pratt suggested that fans stream Heidi Montag’s 2010 album “Superficial” to financially support them. It reached No. 1 on iTunes.
Speaking of the fires, I’m looking forward to what the FireAid benefit concert will have in store on Jan. 30.
Carrie Underwood will perform at the inauguration. "I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future," she said. I suppose it’s a step up from 2017’s 3 Doors Down.
🚨 VIBE CHECK 🚨
What the people are actually listening to:
One of my party tricks is informing people of which artists are topping the Billboard charts. It blows their minds. Yes, I’m really fun at parties!
Billboard Hot 100
“Die With a Smile” is still at No. 1., and the chart’s top 10 has almost remained exactly the same. (Morgan Wallen moved to No. 4 but we don’t talk about him here.) I’m excited to see Grammy best new artist nominee Doechii’s “DENIAL IS A RIVER” arrive to the chart for the first time at No. 76. This song has so much personality and storytelling and FUN and I hope it continues to receive love.
Billboard 200
Lil Baby’s “WHAM” debuted at No. 1, followed by Bad Bunny’s “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” at No. 2. It’s worth noting that Lil Baby’s album came out on Friday, Jan. 3, while Bad Bunny released off of the traditional album release cycle on Sunday, Jan. 5. This means it arrived to the chart with only 5 days of activity, versus 7, as the chart tracks activity from Friday to Thursday. If Bad Bunny went with the regular New Music Friday releases, would he have reached No. 1? There’s no way of knowing, but I’m curious if he’ll reach No. 1 next week.
😘 Friday I’m in Love 😘
Tomorrow’s album releases:
jasmine.4.t - “You Are the Morning”
This album comes from the first U.K. signee on Phoebe Bridgers’s Saddest Factory Records, jasmine.4.t. It’s also a boygenius extravaganza—Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus produced the record together, and all three of them sing together on four songs. The highlight for me is “Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation,” partially because we get upfront vocals from Phoebe (I missed her) but also because I loved hearing Jasmine’s screams at the end. I wish the album had more of that.
The Weather Station: Humanhood
I’m being a fake fan right now. I’ve always had trouble getting into the Weather Station, but one of the record’s singles, “Body Moves,” has made me reconsider everything. 2025 might just be a year of realizing things.
There are only two things you actually need to know about me. My name is Natalia and my favorite podcast is Las Culturistas. They end every episode with a song. I end every newsletter with a song.
According to Luminate, Prime Video’s “I Am: Celine Dion” was last year’s second most-watched music documentary. It’s almost as if people think she’s one of the greatest singers of all time.