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fullbeaumonty · 5 years

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Ten Lords A-Leaping (Or, in this Case, One Excited Duke)

This is my contribution to the 12 Days of Cordonian Christmas for Day 10 - Ten Lords A-Leaping!

Pairing: Maxwell x Lydia, Lydia and Joni (OC friend)

Word Count: ~4,500

Rating: Let’s call it PG for language. This is pure fluff, though.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except Joni and Oliver.

Author’s Note: I’ve wondered about the friends that our transplanted MCs left behind - in New York in the case of TRR. Certainly she had friends and I’ll bet they miss each other and find ways to stay in touch across the miles. For this story and in my universe, I gave my beloved Lydia a dear friend from back home named Joni (whom Lydia sometimes calls Jones as a nickname). Inspiration for this story and a moodboard are at the bottom - they’d give too much away if I put them here!

To my own real-life Joni - you already know this story is a Christmas gift for you. Your friendship is a gift in my life, as well as the million and a half things I’ve learned from you and the endless encouragement and insight you’ve given me. If I could knit, I would knit you a squid scarf that I’m certain you would wear with Maxwell levels of pride. You deserve that and so much more. I love you.

12 Days Tag List: @ao719 @blackwidow2721 @bobasheebaby @brightpinkpeppercorn @fullbeaumonty @hopefulmoonobject @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @leelee10898 @riseandshinelittleblossom @speedyoperarascalparty @kenjikatsoros @zaffrenotes @mind-reader1 @cocomaxley, @blackcoffee85 @likethetailofacomet @endlessly-searching-for-you @tornbetween2loves

Personal Tag List: @breaumonts, @thedepthsremember, @ritachacha, @hellospunkiebrewster, @alj4890, @dancetothestoriesinyoursoul, @littlecrookedheart

Up next for Day 11 is @itsstillnotwhatyouthink!

*********

She’d started the project with an Etsy-purchased pattern and a dream, no experience and little more for inspiration than a long-forgotten comment he’d probably just said to make her laugh in the moment. But Lydia listens, and moreover, she thinks, mental gears in constant motion. She’d tucked that idea away until she realized as the leaves began to turn that she should probably get started on such an ambitious project if it was going to be done in time for Christmas.

There was so much joy in the activity then, tools and supplies hidden away in a box, in a drawer, in a rarely-used room, every caution taken to be sure this would always remain a surprise. But that was before the twenty YouTube tutorials (“...for absolute beginners, my ass!”), the half-dozen failed cast-ons and dozen and a half restarts when she had to pull everything apart and start over to fix yet another mistake. It’s late November and the project she can see so clearly in her mind is little more than a heap of mottled red yarn on her lap.

She stares out the window at the distant mountains, trying to calm herself through her frustration. Checking her phone, she does some quick mental time zone math to be sure it’s not too early on the East Coast before sending a message to Joni, who not only knew how to knit but also always knew how to make her feel as though she could take on the world. And if the world was in her reach, certainly this project was as well.

After a few moments, the phone screen lights up, and Lydia smiles.

*********

They have no shortage of friends - noble, common, or otherwise - but every once in a while she still feels the pang of missing her friends back in the States. Just because this is a wonderful, charmed life doesn’t negate the fact that she left another life behind that had its own positives. Thank goodness for messaging apps and Pictagram to keep her far-away friends feeling at least a little closer.

The familiar tri-tone ring of Skype fills the quiet of the room before her dear friend’s face pops up on the laptop’s screen, pixelating for a moment, then returning. Joni grins and squeals, “Lyddie!” and the smile Lydia returns as she waves at her friend hurts her cheeks, but it’s accompanied by the tangible ebbing away of her earlier frustration.

“It’s so good to see you! You look great! New hair?”

“Of course! I loved the lavender, but it fades so quickly.”

“Well, that shade of red is perfect for you.” Lydia pulls her long brunette waves over one shoulder. “Still plain Jane brown over here.”

Joni waves her off. “Hush, you’re gorgeous.” She props herself up on her elbows on the desk and smiles at Lydia. “I miss you, Lyd. But it looks like royal life is treating you well.”

“We’re nobility, my friend, not royalty. Big difference.”

“Yeah, huge.” Joni laughs and Lydia joins her, happy just to see her friend. It’s not the quiet coffee shop filled with hipsters writing manuscripts where they were used to meeting, but right now, it’s a close second.

“So…” Joni rubs her hands together excitedly. “You want some help to knit a scarf, huh?” Lydia nods, looking down from the camera for a moment to email her a link to the picture and pattern. Joni’s smile fades as her jaw drops slowly and her eyes go wide as she scans the instructions. “I thought you were trying to knit a scarf scarf, as in, a very long rectangle. I figured maybe you were being ambitious with something like a cable knit and it was giving you trouble. This is…” she trails off for a moment. “I mean, it’s doable, but it’s another level. And you’ve never knitted before?”

She shakes her head. “Never.”

“You never did things by half measures, either, Lyd.” Joni looks up from the pattern, brow furrowed. “I’ll help you the best I can, but I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea how to change yarns like that.”

“Jones,” she sighs, “I don’t even know what ‘changing yarns’ means. I’m in way, way over my head.” She lifts the tangled pile of yarn so Joni can see it on her own screen. Her friend pulls a face when she sees the mess. “I know, right? Yikes.”

“Yikes,” Joni agrees.

Lydia watches in silence as Joni reads the instructions in detail, squinting at the screen and silently mouthing a phrase here and there. Anxiety creeps back in by the moment. Maybe this was impossible. She hates that word, but she also hates the fact that she’s had this in mind for the better part of a year and it’s now exactly one month to Christmas, with no end in sight for the project.

Finally, Joni looks up at her again. “You know what, I love a good challenge. I can’t exactly teach you more than the basics, because most of this is all new to me, but I’ll learn along with you and we can knit this thing together. What do you think?”

Lydia can’t speak for the lump in her throat, but her smile and nod say “thank you” for her.

*********

Joni is exceedingly patient, more patient than Lydia would be if the tables were turned, as she teaches her the essentials of knitting.

“Okay, basic knit stitch. Bring this needle up into the first stitch, behind your left-hand needle. Wrap the yarn between the two needles, counter-clockwise for you since you’re looking down on it, then pull that strand through the stitch. Angle the needle downward if you need to, like this.” She holds her needles up to the camera and slowly goes through the motions again as a visual. Lydia nods and tries it herself. “We’re going to knit this row and purl the next one, okay? The instructions say to count 66 stitches for each.”

If these are the same instructions given by strangers on the many YouTube videos she’d watched over the past month of confusion and frustration, she wouldn’t know. She makes mistakes. She needs several steps repeated. She unravels parts of her work in frustration and begins again. But now she understands. Maybe all it took was the encouragement of a familiar voice. It’s amazing to look down and finally see progress.

The two friends talk while they knit, more words spoken aloud between them in these few weeks than in the past year and a half. Theirs is an odd relationship, friends who met online as strangers through a shared interest years ago, happily discovering over time that they lived relatively close to one another. In what feels like a former life now, they would meet halfway for coffee every few months for marathon chats and so much laughter. She’s grateful for text messages, but her heart twists for a moment when she glances up at the screen, watching her friend skillfully knit while she tells a story about the customers at her job. Lydia simply wishes she could hug her again.

It has always amazed and delighted her that she seems to learn something new about life, the world, or herself after a conversation with Joni. She’s learning about stockinette and right-leaning stitches, purl-wise and knit-wise and bind-offs, of course, but as the scarves take shape, their discussions deepen beyond even the light conversation between dear friends to fears, futures, and more.

Lydia shares stories of the animals in the menagerie and Joni shakes her head and laughs over Maxwell’s peacock obsession. (“Did I tell you about the time he officiated a peacock wedding?”) They ponder whether Joni’s boyfriend James will pop the question any time soon (“If he does, I hope he doesn’t do it at Christmas, that’s so cliche.”) and sometimes Lydia calls out a hello to him as he walks through the room in the background. (“Say hi to Max for me!” “You can text him yourself, you know!”)

As they start in on knitting the many stitches of the long, long tentacles, Joni asks about their corgi. “So you just have Wigglesworth, then? I’m really surprised that a couple with a panther, pandas, and a pride of peafowl only has one pet in the house.” They look up at each other and laugh at her unintentional alliteration.

Lydia’s smile is wistful and her hands still for a moment. “You know, I realized recently...now that we’re settled in here, it feels strange not to have a cat or two padding around. I’ve always had a cat. It was...just…” She takes a deep breath. “Charlie died eight days before I met the guys. The apartment was so lonely without him, and so sad. It made the decision all that much easier when Maxwell asked me to come to Cordonia with him. I wasn’t leaving anything behind, really.” She looks up at Joni quickly in the camera and waves her hand awkwardly. “I mean, I left you, of course. And Daniel. I do hope he’s okay. But...you knew what I meant, right?”

Joni smiles. “I knew what you meant.”

“So how’s your sweet little feline?”

She angles the laptop screen downward to show the old grey tabby asleep on her lap, completely unfazed by the yarn around him as he purrs in his sleep. “He’s sweet, but not so little. And he’s great. 12 this year.” She scratches behind his ears and smooths her hand across his fur affectionately. “I’m sure any man who saves a stray corgi off the street - which I still think is unbelievable, Lyd - and adopts two wild red pandas for you as a gift would love a few cats running around that big place with you. Why don’t you talk to him about it?”

Lydia recounts her stitches, having lost her place while lost in thought, and continues knitting. “I will, thanks.” She gives Joni a half-smile. “Crazy cat ladies unite, right?”

“Hell yes”

********

There are several close calls during this clandestine crafting operation. Once, retreating quickly, quietly, from her designated knitting room toward the end of the hall, she’d come upon him backing out of another rarely-used guest room and shrieked in surprise and fright in the shadowy hallway.

He’d jumped back against the door, hand still grasping the doorknob. “Whoa, Lyd, watch it! You’ll scare…” Catching himself, he’d paused for one long beat. “…everyone.”

“Who is everyone?” Still clutching her chest above her racing heart, she’d looked around the empty corridor, silent but for the sound of her pulse roaring in her ears. Before thinking, she’d asked, “And what are you doing up here?”

“What are you doing up here?”

Shit.

Knowing there was no use attempting even a white lie to her ever-perceptive husband, she’d decided quickly on an evasive truth. Hands up in surrender, she’d leveled with him. “It’s Christmas, Max. You can have your secrets, and I’ll have mine. Deal?”

“Deal,” he’d responded, satisfied.

Joni looked at her quizzically when they’d connected for a knitting session several days later. “Are you in a different room today?” she’d asked, as they each got out their white yarn and started in on the difficult task of stitching the eyes.

With less than two weeks to Christmas and so much work put into this surprise already, Lydia couldn’t be too careful.

*******

The suckers nearly do her in. After two days of working on them, not one is truly circular, and none are spaced correctly. Lydia finally throws down her needles and yarn in a frustrated huff, screeching in a manner rather unbefitting a duchess, “This is bullshit! Why did I ever think this was a good idea?”

Joni, who has been the model of patience so far in this endeavor, looks up from her perfect row of suckers two tentacles ahead and levels a stern gaze at her, gesturing with one needle toward the camera. “Because that man is honestly such a good, he changed your life forever and he deserves this insane scarf at the absolute least and the world at most. Because it’s your first Christmas together and this is worth it, I promise. Because you’re incredible and you can do anything you put your mind to, and I know you know that. Do you need more reasons? I have more.”

She shakes her head no and picks up the project again, simultaneously cowed and calmed, giving her friend a small smile as she counts the stitches to the placement of the next sucker. “Thanks, Jones,” she says quietly.

Joni returns her smile. “Anytime.” Looking back down at the yarn in her hands, she asks brightly, “So what do you think Maxwell got you for Christmas?”

********

Finally, finally, the project is complete. It’s a woeful imitation of the pattern’s accompanying example photo, but it’s done, and it’s clearly a squid, so that’s really all that matters at this point. Joni completed her scarf several days ago and has so far spent this knitting session sharing her tips and tricks for finishing up the stitches and making sure everything is in place. Lydia’s not sure everything actually is in place, but Christmas is four days away and when she holds the scarf up, nothing falls off. She and Joni both decide on success.

“You know, this may be the coolest scarf I’ve ever knitted...the coolest thing I’ve ever knitted! It’s certainly the most interesting one I’ve ever owned! The most flair I’ve ever added until now was tassels along the edge.” Joni’s smile is bright and genuine, clearly proud of both of them. “This is a real accomplishment for me - I can’t imagine how you must feel!”

“I feel like I can’t thank you enough.”

Joni waves her hand at the camera. “You’re welcome, of course, but hey, I learned something new. That’s never a bad thing. And this time together…” She shakes her head slightly and trails off for a moment, collecting herself before looking back up. “I’ve missed you, Lyd.”

She swallows against the lump in her throat and smiles at her friend. “Me too. I think we’re overdue for a trip to New York. But you and James are always welcome here!” She gestures toward the room behind her. “We have twenty-two guest rooms just waiting for guests!” Thinking a moment, she amends, “Well, nineteen. One is Wigglesworth’s room, we just started working on the ball pit room I promised Maxwell, and I think this one will become my knitting room.”

“Hey, I know!” Joni exclaims, face lit up with excitement. “We can keep doing this! Not inordinately difficult squid scarves, obviously, but if you actually enjoy knitting, we can meet up this way to work on our projects together. Like a little knitting club! But we need a name…”

Lydia delivers her suggestion proudly as though it’s a royal decree. “We shall henceforth be known as the Knit-wits!”

“Oh, come on,” Joni groans. She shakes her head but can’t hide her smile. “Does Max appreciate your ridiculous puns?”

“Jones, you have no idea.”

********

She’d spent so much time researching how to knit before finally asking an expert that almost all her personalized ads on Pictagram are now knitting-related. She’s scrolling through idly at her desk in a quiet moment to herself when she comes across the perfect gift for her friend - a black t-shirt printed with a lovely woman whose hair is made of multicolored yarn, knitting needles sticking out at odd angles for hairpins, a beatific smile on her face as she reaches up with scissors to snip off a section. The fact that it says Yarn Goddess is the icing on the cake.

She orders it immediately, giddy with excitement. It won’t quite make it to New York by Christmas, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

********

The gift-giving portion of this lovely, quiet Christmas morning is wrapping up. New clothes - including several lacy pieces for Lydia - have been tried on and modeled, a small pile of items both fun and practical sit on the coffee table in front of them, and new books are stacked on the floor. Paper and bows are strewn everywhere. They’ve gone through half a box of tissues between them (“We’re ridiculous, you know that? What couple cries this much on Christmas morning?”) as gifts both special and simply surprising have been opened.

Maxwell is currently at the Christmas tree, giving his latest gift pride of place front and center. As he finds just the right spot for the ornament, she reaches up again to touch her new necklace - a simple aquamarine solitaire, so beautiful it needs no extravagant setting. The stone is a hue-perfect reminder of the crystalline ocean outside their honeymoon villa, a blissful memory in gemstone form. She watches him hold the ornament in the palm of his hand for just a moment after he hangs it on the tree, looking at it once more, and her chest tightens with emotion. She honestly never knew she could love someone so much.

He doesn’t even bother with a tissue this time, wiping his eyes with his hand as he flops back down on the sofa next to her, their knees touching on the center cushion. She smiles softly at him, thrilled that one of the gifts she was most excited to give him this morning had obviously hit its mark.

“Where did you even find that, Lyd? It’s amazing. Perfect.”

“Ah, Americans love to personalize things. We’ll personalize anything if it has enough space to write a name. And never underestimate the power of Google...though finding an ornament with a hippo couple under the mistletoe does seem like serendipity.” She looks over to the ornament on the tree, the branches sparkling even in the bright light of late morning. “But we know a thing or two about serendipity, don’t we?”

“We do,” he responds quietly, leaning back against the cushion with a smile. She’s eager to share his final gift with him, but she can’t resist scooting across the sofa to curl against his side. With his arms around her, it feels like a warm cocoon of holiday contentment. Breathing in his scent, listening to his heart beat, his hand combing gently through her hair, she could so easily fall asleep. The scarf was three months in the making, after all; it could wait another hour. Wigglesworth waddles over from his plush new dog bed and hops up on the sofa with them to join in the cuddling. After a few minutes, Maxwell breaks the cozy silence. “I still have one more gift for you.”

She looks up at him. “I do, too.”

“Oh! You first!”

Laughing at his renewed Christmas excitement, she reluctantly disentangles herself from him and gets up to grab the final gift package beneath the tree and places it in his lap. He tears at the paper until the mottled red blob of yarn is revealed, eyes widening as he lifts it up to see it in its full glory.

Lydia can see every imperfection in the stitching - the fact that two random tentacles are the better part of a foot longer than the other six, the eyes are too far apart and not even close to level, and one tentacle somehow ended up with three less suckers than the rest. But Maxwell runs his hand across the soft yarn with a look of awe, his grin brightening as he takes it all in.

“This is...where did you even get...wait, did you make this?” His wide eyes meet hers and she nods. “I didn’t know you could knit!”

“I didn’t either!” she laughs, “I mean, I learned. Joni taught me, actually.”

He’s already wrapping it around his neck as he asks, “How long did it take? It’s really...wow.”

She thinks back. “A little over three months.”

Suddenly her vision is filled with a swirl of knitted tentacles as he pounces across the sofa onto her. “Hey, one lord a-leaping! Careful!” But she’s laughing as she wraps her arms around his shoulders and gazes up at him, his eyes glistening again as he grins down at her.

“Three months? I can’t believe you took the time to make this for me. I can’t believe you remembered a dumbass comment I made almost a year ago. I...”

She cuts him off with a kiss. “Believe it,” she murmurs against his lips, before she pulls him closer, the tentacles between them draped softly around her shoulders.

Several long moments later, he pulls away with obvious reluctance and moves to sit up again. “Stay here, Christmas blossom. I’ll be right back.”

She watches him through the doorway as he hurries through the grand hall and past his namesake statue, who is currently wreathed along with his horse in Christmas boughs instead of the laurels of victory. She laughs to herself watching him bound up the stairs two at a time.

A few minutes later, he returns with a large gift box in his arms, adorned with a massive bow and making a...was that a scratching sound? She looks at him quizzically.

And then the contents of the box meow.

He sets the package on her lap and slowly lifts the lid, a tiny pink nose peeking through first, followed by two ginger paws, and then a third. Suddenly the kitten leaps from the box onto her chest, digging in his little claws and mewing loudly. Wigglesworth jumps down from the sofa and retreats to his dog bed, deciding it best to watch this scene unfold from afar. She wraps her hand around the kitten and carefully removes his claws from her pajama top. Holding him against her shoulder with both hands to calm him, she gazes down through her tears at his sweet ginger face before looking up at her husband. She couldn’t speak right now if she tried.

He pulls two tissues from the box on the coffee table and hands her both, taking the kitten from her to give her a chance to blow her nose.

As she wipes her eyes, Lydia watches as he holds the kitten to his scarf-covered chest, tiny claws snagging the stitches she so meticulously placed. But the kitten is the spitting image of her Charlie, and Molly before him - a beautiful ginger tabby with distinctly-striped legs and a ringed tail - and Maxwell is looking down at him with so much joy and love. Worrying about pulled stitches seems to be a waste in this happy moment.

He looks up at her with a hopeful expression in his eyes. “Do you...like him?”

“I love him, Max.” She reaches over to stroke down the kitten’s back and along his tiny tail. “I’m wondering how you got a cat in here without me knowing, but I love him.” Maxwell hands the kitten back to her and she holds him up to her face, touching her nose to his. He mews at her and rubs his face against her cheek. “What’s your name, little guy?”

“Well, the lady I adopted him from was calling him Oliver, so that’s what I’ve been calling him, too.”

Realization dawns on her. “Have you been keeping him in that guest bedroom in the west hallway?”

He nods, smiling. “We have a kitten room and you didn’t even know it!” Reaching over to give the kitten a scritch under his chin, he says, “Is the name okay? You can change it if you want.”

She brings the little feline up to her face again. “What do you think, my tiny pumpkin pie? Are you an Oliver?” she asks the cat.

Oliver responds with a loud mew.

She grins at her husband, who is proudly wearing the most ridiculous scarf on the planet.

“Welcome to our crazy family, Oliver.”

********

She’s just popped the top on a can of wet cat food, Oliver mewing near her feet and attempting to scale the leg of her jeans with his tiny kitten claws, when a member of the staff enters the kitchen with the mail. A puffy manila envelope rests on top. Lydia thanks him with a warm smile that grows wider when she sees the New York return address and familiar handwriting. Suddenly equally as excited for the mysterious package as Oliver is about his dinner, she fills his bowl to calm his insistent mews and sets about shredding the adhesive holding the envelope closed.

Tears spring to her eyes as she immediately recognizes the soft blues and greys of the yarn she’s seen in her friend’s hands over the past month of video chats. The tentacles on this scarf are of equal lengths, the eyes are set parallel, the suckers are evenly spaced. It’s obviously a superior version of the one Lydia gave Maxwell several days prior, but made with an equal amount of love. She knows because she watched its creation.

Wiping the tears from her eyes as she wraps the scarf around her neck, she pulls the tentacles of one side through the little knitted loop behind the squid’s face that gave them each so much grief. She laughs remembering their shared frustration and notes that the loop Joni knitted in looks far sturdier than the one she struggled over herself. She looks down at the delightfully silly squid face staring out from her chest and finally notices the note safety-pinned halfway down one long tentacle.

I hope you wear this in good health and so much happiness, no matter what you do or where you go.

Be amazing.

Be badass.

Be kind.

Be you.

I love you. - Joni

Lydia’s heart squeezes in her chest and fresh tears fill her eyes. It’s amazing, she thinks, how this little crafting adventure to create something special for the love of her life also brought her closer to a far-away friend. The whole thing began and ended with love.

Just then, Maxwell walks into the room, inexplicably wearing his own squid scarf indoors. He bends to give Oliver a few scritches while he eats, errant tentacles dragging on the floor momentarily, before he catches sight of his wife behind the island. He sees her tears first and concern crosses his face before she smiles and waves it off. “I’m fine. Happy tears,” she promises, wiping her eyes with one soft tentacle.

He nods and gives her an understanding half-smile, leaning back against the counter before he reaches for her scarf in surprise. “Hey! We match!”

We complement, she thinks, her scarf a mix of the cool blue of a buoyant ocean and the soft steel grey of the sky after a storm at sea.

She simply agrees, however, as she stands on tiptoes in her bare feet and reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck. “I like it that way.”

“Me too,” he says quietly, smiling.

She presses her chest to his, the two squids kissing just a moment before their wearers do.

********

And of course, my inspiration came directly from canon:

The poor man never got his jello shots at the wedding, but the least I can do is get him that squid scarf.

#12 days of cordonian christmas #maxwell x lydia #my otp owns a piece of my heart #lydia and joni are pals #trr #merry christmas!#the fluffiest of fluff #maxwell x mc #mc x maxwell #the royal romance #fan fiction #long post

58 notes · View notes

fiddleabout · 3 years

Note

Hi are you gonna do albums of 2020?

hey pal, sorry for the delay! I know you sent this ages ago, but also in my defense, like two days after you sent it, Taylor Swift dropped a whole other album. So. We’ll say my procrastination was intentional and not at all just. Y’know. Procrastination.

So! Per your request, my 20 favorite albums of 2020, plus some honorable mentions...

Honorable mentions:

Benee, Hey u x

Roisin Murphy, Roisin Machine

Jonsi, Shiver

Taylor Swift, Evermore

Lydia Loveless, Daughter

Halsey, Manic

Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Angels

Katie Pruitt, Expectations

Lady Gaga, Chromatica

Half Waif, The Caretaker

Georgia, Seeking Thrills

20. The Killers, Imploding the Mirage

There’s a deeply eighties glitz to a lot of this album-- not in the glitchy synthpop way, but in a Depeche Mode soundtracking a new iteration of Ferris Bueller playing hooky, Springsteen Born In The USA sort of way, as much auditory shimmer as it is social commentary. There’s a whole lot of angst and fury under the glitz, and there’s no wonder why; as with so many recent albums, it’s an aggressively contemporary one, responding to the sociopolitical context of the United States in recent years.

Favorite track: absolutely, unequivocally My God, which in a lot of ways doesn’t fit sonically with the rest of the album. The interplay between Brandon Flowers and Natalie Laura Mering of Weyes Blood is practically gospel. IT honestly doesn’t get better than the 2:15 mark and the way the weight has been lifted just absolutely soars overtop of everything else.

19. Charli XCX - how i’m feeling now

This was one of the first true quarantine albums of 2020 and honestly the kickoff of pink diamond and that glitchy psuedo-trap opening pretty much encapsulates that fever dream of March to May. Charli XCX has been riding the front edge of the evolution of pop music for years now, and how i’m feeling now is, in a lot of ways, the first time she’s ever really returned to an existing sound: a good half of the album would have fit precisely into 2017′s pop 2. claws, for example, fits dead center musically between backseat and unlock it from that album. that said though, for all that it calls back to pop 2 and charli throughout, it’s hardly a retread: there’s a shining manic edge to every turn on the album, full of aggression and a liberal use of discordance as a driver, the only breathing moments on the album aching with loneliness, a painfully appropriate album for the first half of 2020.

Favorite track: enemy is deep and rich, less discord and more harmony, a 1986 power ballad made into 21st century synthpop.

18. Kesha - High Road

I have to admit a level of bias: Kesha could probably, at this point, release an album of out of tune birdcalls and I’d want to count it as a favorite for the year, just because of the whole legal battle. Thankfully, High Road is just a good album on it’s own, and I feel confident in saying that, bias and all. From the absolutely perfect split-the-difference of her glitter-trash rap-pop of her early albums and the big gospel rock of Rainbow, High Road leans into every strength Kesha has and amplifies it: the big voice, the boisterous energy, the deep country roots. There’s a clever use of guest spots throughout, from Big Freedia on Raising Hell to the two times Wrabel is trotted out to add another level of heartwrenching.

Favorite track: tie between Raising Hell-- it’s so BIG and fabulously unashamed-- and Kinky-- that sing-song chorus is just ads;lfkjaslfj-- and if you try to make me choose I will cry. Also: Potato Song. Because I can.

17. Torres - Silver Tongue

It must suck to be someone who dropped an album early in 2020. I honestly forgot this album came out this year for a good six months, but not because it’s not great; this year’s just a shitshow. There’s a very Joni Mitchell feel to this album, from the cover art to the sound itself: Torres has been on a trajectory towards a deeper, warmer sound for the last two albums and it carries on into Silver Tongue, an almost mirror image, sonically, of a Joni Mitchell album where the song is her voice and everything else is window dressing; Silver Tongue surrounds Mackenzie Scott’s voice with warm synths and drawn out bass lines and the occasional carefully-distributed snare lines. It works almost everywhere, with the exception being Two of Everything, which Scott released in 2019 as a much more pared down and restrained single that was easily fifty times better than the album version.

Favorite track: Gracious Day is stark and spare and delicate, a moment without pressure in an album full of it. It would have been easy to overproduce this song, but instead it’s held back, leaving space for Scott’s voice and no surprise, honey, i’m gonna love you all my life.

16. Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

Ignoring the wifi password child and Elon Musk of it all that come part and parcel with Grimes these days: this might not be an Art Angels- though honestly, what could be?-- but Grimes making a mid-range Grimes album still puts her ages ahead of most people making music. Like with all Grimes albums, there’s a distinctly cohesive lack of cohesion: as always, Grimes isn’t making music to make friends, and she isn’t making music to be accessible, but at the same time she’s also made some of the least aggressive songs of her career on this album: Delete Forever is downright jaunty-- there are BANJOES-- and IDORU is practically soft, gliding along smooth as you please over a toe-tapping percussion line.

Favorite track: We Appreciate Power is like if Metallica and Cindy Mayweather had a bitch of a baby and, frankly, it’s perfect.

15. Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud

Katie Crutchfield has been quietly putting out some of the best music around for years now, and Saint Cloud is the latest instance of her tried-and-true formula of aching, waiting songs that feel like sitting in a dusty gym after the high school dance ended. Her music is as much in the open spaces as the sounds, especially the big empty spaces that exist between the vocals and the spare drumline that drags each track to its end.

Favorite track: Fire. The tom-and-bass line that kicks in in the back third of the song, soft and easy, really pulls the whole song together, rounding out the almost aggressive edge to her voice.

14. Sylvan Esso - Free Love

Sylvan Esso has always had a knack for pushing the line between interesting and irritating much further than should be possible. Free Love is full of glitchy, almost video game-esque flourishes that drag it right up to the edge of kitschy without ever actually crossing over it. There’s a deft use of percussion to ground the album underneath the stuttering and the aggressive digital high lines and Amelia Meath’s vocals on her best outing since 2014′s self-titled album.

Favorite track: Runaway builds and drops like nothing else on the album, and I’m always a sucker for songs that build.

13. Megan Thee Stallion - Good News

It’s weird to think about the fact that this is Megan Thee Stallion’s first album-- it’s not just that it feels like she’s been around and kicking out great music for ages, but also that Good News feels much more like a third album, more fully formed and polished than a debut. There’s a lot that could be said about how even when it slows down it’s still a persistent unwavering march forward, how she splits the difference between traditional rap beats and pop beats elegantly, but honestly it’s all in the title: it’s just good news all around.

Favorite Track: Circles just barely wins out over Shots Fired, and both of them are obviously challenged by Savage Remix.

12. Miley Cyurs - Plastic Hearts

There’s plenty to say about the evolution of Miley Cyrus since her Disney days, but it all sums up to this: Miley Cyrus exists to crank out a gritty 21st century version of 1980s and 1990s rock, and she excels at it. There’s a reason why some of the greatest names in rock history-- Stevie Nicks! Joan Jett! Billy Idol!-- are all on this album, but it’s not just them: there’s a whole host of influential fingerprints all over the album, from Courtney Love (Plastic Hearts) to Debbie Harry (not just that Heart of Glass cover, but Midnight Sky is as much a Blondie song as a Miley Cyrus song), as Cyrus gives a nod back to the women who made rock what it is today.

Favorite track: Night Crawling, though Prisoner is a close second. But Night Crawling, from that first fade-in to the way it blasts open into the chorus. It’s the best Billy Idol song since Rebel Yell and the best Miley Cyrus song, period, and no, I will not be accepting comments or criticisms at this time.

11. The Chicks - Gaslighter

I’ve loved The Chicks since they were hounded out of country radio for the George W. Bush debacle in London, and I’d come to terms years ago that 2006′s Taking the Long Way was the last I’d ever hear from them, but then: then, Gaslighter dropped. The lead single and title track sets the tone for the whole album: unabashedly pulling receipts and lamenting the past while looking to the future, not to mention that infectious foot-stomping beat. The album trades in sorrow and fury, frustration and hope, in equal amounts, from the homage to social protests in March, March, forever bursting at the seams but never releasing, to the polite fuck-off to an ex in My Best Friend’s Weddings; the chicks have always succeeded the most in making the political personal and the personal political, and Gaslighter is a shining example.

Favorite track: My Best Friend’s Weddings is just gorgeous-- the way the vocals build up in the repetition of go it alone, go it alone is worth the price of admission for the whole album.

10. SAULT - Untitled (Black Is) / Untitled (Rise)

Technically, I’m cheating, because these are actually two albums, but I can’t find a way to separate them in my mind. I’m not going to try and talk intelligently about influences or references within them, because I don’t know enough about them to do so, but people much smarter than me have already written plenty. But the only way I can think to sum it all up is: Untitled (Black Is) dropped in June, in the middle of the protests that defined the summer months in the US and bottled up the same frustration and fury; Untitled (Rise) came along three months later in September and lets all of it loose.

Favorite track: The Beginning & the End. That bass line makes me want to cry.

9. Soccer Mommy - color theory

I’ve probably gone on and on before about how Sophie Allison is melding nineties grunge and shoegaze masterfully, so I won’t go into it again. It’s a meandering album, refusing any efforts to pick up the pace except for throwing a bone out in the form of crawling in my skin, which jaunts along quietly for four minutes in the middle of the album and then it slows right back down into yellow is the color of her eyes. There are no hooks or standout bass lines or percussive flourishes on the album: everything feels like it’s dragging through 90% humidity in August, a collection of basics cleverly constructed into something more than the sum of their parts.

Favorite track: lucy and the way the guitar rings out overtop of that thick sloggy rhythm section in the bridge is a masterclass in layering sounds.

8. Purity Ring - WOMB

I’ve loved Purity Ring since 2011, when I talked my way into a sold-out Neon Indian show they were opening at when they’d only released three songs, and their third album absolutely justifies it. Sorry, Neon Indian. WOMB is rich and dense, forever leaning into the way Megan James’ voice floats right over the heavier sounds in the instrumentation.

Favorite track: pink lightning is the most shining example of all that purity ring can do when they want to-- simultaneously weighty and shimmering, shuddering under the weight of the synths while James’ voice pulls the whole track up.

7. Hayley Williams - Petals for Armor

When Hayley Williams announced she was going to be releasing a solo album, I had no idea what to expect: Paramore’s worn so many hats over the course of their career that there was no way of knowing if Williams would land closer to Misery Business or Rose Colored Boy. As it turns out, she went somewhere entirely different: where so much of Paramore’s best work has come from their willingness to use big sounds, Williams pulls back and tilts it on its head, stretching her voice in ways she never has with Paramore, turning the instrumentation inwards into sounds that are simultaneously pulling back away from the vocals and pushing to break out from under them. It’s an album on the edges, playing in the open spaces of a constant seesaw between restraint and explosion.

Favorite track: I honestly didn’t think anything would top Over Yet, but the duality of Sudden Desire and the way the verses are this quiet, unconcerned meander over almost nothing but a simple bass line, then the vocals start to layer, and then it blasts out into the chorus with the synths and Williams sounding almost exactly like she did on 2005′s All We Know Is Falling.

6. The Naked and Famous - Recover

The Naked and Famous have always been one of those bands that exist on my periphery, showing up on playlists slipshod and inconsistently, and I’d never really dug into their discography. But then I heard Sunseeker, and then Bury Us, and then Come As You Are, and I was sold on the whole album before I’d even listened to it all the way through. Recover is an album of bright sounds in a dark shitty year, 49 minutes of shimmering respite and crisp clean lines.

Favorite track: the one-two of Muscle Memory and it’s instrumental oomph dropping straight into the sparse opening of The Sound of My Voice is just MWAH.

5. Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia

According to Spotify, Physical was the song I listened to most this year, and honestly that tracks. All the commentary I’ve read about Future Nostalgia is how Dua Lipa had the misfortune of making a club bangers album in a year when the world shut down, and they’re not wrong: Future Nostalgia is an album of pure energy laid down over retro disco beats, all scientifically designed to make you want to get up and dance. There’s no breathing room on the album until you get to the tail end of the album, and even then it’s for just enough time to fling out Boys Will Be Boys and then kicks right back up into high gear with Levitating. Start to finish, it’s an album of rakish charming bombast, made for sweat and questionable behavior, to the point where it even makes an antisocial misanthrope like me want to go clubbing.

Favorite track: if I said anything besides Physical, would anyone believe me? I think not.

4. Taylor Swift - Folklore

There’s not much else to say that hasn’t already been said about Folklore. It’s an extraordinary album, a collection of brilliant storytelling in song form, a culmination of everything Taylor Swift has ever done up to this point: heartwrenching turns of phrase, deftly balancing of vocals and instrumentation to highlight them both in proper turn, telling stories like it’s a fiction masterclass of pacing and tone and unreliable narrators. Taylor Swift has always been not just one of the great songwriters of the 21st century, but also one of the best at intelligently deploying the skills of the people she works with-- Antonoff and Messner and Vernon--and Folklore was a death knell to anyone trying to argue otherwise.

Favorite track: it’s pretty much impossible to choose, honestly; Folklore is an album of great songs. The Last Great American Dynasty and its narrative flip at the end! The rich bright warmth of August! The way she drags Justin Vernon out of his falsetto and creates a masterpiece with Exile! The whole everything of Mirrorball! Literally cannot pick do not ask me to.

3. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Boltcutters

Remember when the pandemic was fresh and new and we were all still reeling, most from concept more than actuality, and then Fiona Apple dropped an album and for just a few breaths we were all reeling over that instead? Fetch the Boltcutters kicks off with that off-beat jazz-inspired hi-hat line, jittery and offset, and then tumbles right into a downright gorgeous piano hook before the vocals kick in. Over the course of the album, Apple is constantly oscillating between biting and soothing, unabashed edge and unrestrained calm. There are no punches pulled, no lip service played to ease of listening or approachability; even in the widening out open spaces throughout the album-- all of the discordant emptiness in the title track; the lackadaisical ladies, ladies, ladies refrain; the sparse echoes of For Her-- there’s no care given to making music that’s easy to listen to or digest.

Favorite track: I was thinking it’d be harder for me to pick but honestly, Heavy Balloon and I spread like strawberries/I climb like peas and beans wins every single time.

2. Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA

A history lesson: in 2003, young fiddlesticks here was very into both Evanescence and also Britney Spears, which was by many social conventions what you might call a taboo combination. Not anymore, though, if Rina Sawayama is any indication: one part metal, one part pop, two parts fuck-your-genres; STFU could be a Korn cover until you get to the chorus, which would fit in on a Circus-era Britney Spears single. The rest of the album follows suit, sometimes waltzing right up to the edge of a scream (Dynasty, Who’s Gonna Save You Now) and sometimes swanning off the high dive and straight into jittery over-caffeinated pop (Paradisin’, Tokyo Love Hotel) and always swinging for the fences.

Favorite track: Paradisin’ hits too close to every single moment of teen stress between the years of 2000 and 2008, so much so that if I were ten years younger I would run screaming from it but, thankfully, in my advanced years of crotchetiness, I can love it unrestrainedly.

1. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

I feel like I’ve read more thinkpieces about Phoebe Bridgers this year than I have about the election or coronavirus: I know it’s technically not true, but aside from Taylor Swift I can’t think of someone who grabbed more attention in critical circles for as long. And to be fair, Punisher deserves it. It’s an album obsessed with perception and reality and the spaces between them: Kyoto and homesickness warring against a need to travel the world; the title track and I’m a copycat killer with a chemical cut; the constant undercurrent of anxiety that defined Stranger in the Alps, set to a much more widely vacillating soundscape. Much like Taylor Swift or Fiona Apple, Phoebe Bridgers is one of the great songwriters of the 21st century, as cutting and unconcerned with accessibility as Apple and as capable of turning a hook and a gut-wrenching phrase as Swift. Punisher is an album for the anxious, delivered at a particularly prescient time, in turns quiet contemplation and unreserved explosion.

Favorite track: it’s a practically impossible decision-- I Know the End and I’ll find a new place to be from is one of the greatest closers in recent memory; Graceland Too is an emotional gutwrench made worse by the inclusion of Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker; there’s a reason Kyoto keeps popping up on all sorts of best-of lists-- but for me it has to be Chinese Satellite. Maybe it’s the part of my that grew up disillusioned in a deeply religious household; maybe it’s the way it builds and releases over and over again, a masterclass in managing auditory tension, the restraint in the verses giving way to what feels like a release in the chorus until it stumbles out into the back half of the last chorus and the backing vocals hold out longer and the guitar comes in and the percussion line bulks up and then it just drops at the end. Or maybe it’s just but you know I’d stand on the corner/embarrassed with a picket sign/if it meant I would see you when I die.

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