Best of 2019 - NPR

I'm still looking for a best-of list that really matches my tastes.  Feels really hard to find one - not sure if it is because I have such varied tastes, or if I'm not sophisticated enough to love the esoteric or boring crap that most lists include, but let's keep trying, why don't we!

Here's NPR's top ten (well, they actually did a top 25, but I ain't doing all of that).  After typing each of them out below, it has to be weird that I haven't even heard of half of these artists in the first place.  I mean, come on.  I figured NPR would try to be more mainstream, but maybe not.

1. Brittany Howard - Jaime.  I dig the Alabama Shakes, and some of these tunes jam, so I'm OK with liking this album.  I'd say that one or two songs on here aren't great - but the majority are very good songs.
2. Angel Olsen - All Mirrors.  Nope.  I like some of her songs on other albums, but after two listens to this one it does nothing for me.  Too soft when it seems to try to rock out, too dramatic feeling, too moody for my tastes.
3. Raphael Saadiq - Jimmy Lee.  Not on Spotify, so I dunno.
4. Solange - When I Get Home.  Nah.  Here is what I said when I reviewed this album previously "Her voice is great.  The tunes kind of sound like a quirky Stevie Wonder thing.  And sometimes she sounds like her sister, which is at least interesting.  But I'm just so entirely bored by it all.  I've tried it multiple times, and every time is just blah.  I know it is the cool thing to fall in complete and total love with her music, but I ain't with it."
5. Aldous Harding - Designer.  This one is actually really nice.  Pretty, chill, interesting album.  Going to keep it for a bit.
6. Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow.  I don't like this one at all.  I've tried her several times - she came to ACL a few years back - but it just doesn't click for me.
7. Caroline Shaw - Orange.  I mean, I guess this one is very nice.  It's just that it is all instrumental classical sounding stuff.  And I am a caveman who want riff.  Also, my mom's car was 100% classical growing up, and I've just never been able to get around on it ever since.  Actually, I say classical sounding - it's almost bluegrass at times, but anything that is done as instrumental and by a string quartet is going to make me think classical.  This is also the sort of thing that is annoying about these pretentious end-of-year lists.  Caroline Shaw doesn't even have a bio on Spotify.  Some lists try so damn hard to unearth the totally cool, hidden gem, that you never would have found, just to justify their musical chops, and its annoying.
8. Lankum - The Livelong Day.  I mean, allrighty.  I like me some traditional Irish music.  Kinda hard, kinda dirty, kinda random to have on a top ten list, but OK.  This is not some Flogging Molly type thing that just pays homage to the tradition, this is the real deal - lots of violin and fife.
9. billy woods and Kenny Segal - Hiding Places.  This is actually really enjoyable rap.  That kind of backpack rap with relatively basic beats, laconic and spare and dreary, and thoughtful lyrics.  Kind of a Madlib vibe - see "Crawlspace."  Love the lyric they quote on the NPR blurb: "Dollar movie theater, dingy foyer, little kid, not a penny to my name / F*****' with the joystick, pretendin' I was really playin'."  Realized that I've reviewed an album by this guy before - when the first track of his last album came on yesterday it sounded familiar.  But, I like this album.
10. Jenny Hval - The Practice of Love.  Electronic sadness pop?  Makes me think of Dido, but much less catchy, much more avant garde.  I don't enjoy it.

OK, so this helped me know that I liked the Brittany Howard disc more than I thought, helped me rediscover billy woods, and let me find out about Aldous Harding.  Maybe sort of worth the exercise.  If anyone out there has a better suggestion for a good top ten list, I'm all ears.