Some albums just sound like intimacy set to music. They are open, sweet, and also as honest as possible. Sometimes it can feel like listening to them is like staying up late at night, texting with a crush or a loved one. Here below, we wanted to dive into four examples of just that. These are a quartet of LPs that sound like their artists’ deepest, darkest secrets. Indeed, these are four albums from the 2010s that sound like late-night text messages.
‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ by Lana Del Rey (2019)
If you ever wanted to know what a smoky room sounded like, just listen to Lana Del Rey. She is the accompanying theme music to that space between dream and reality. She floats, she hovers. Del Rey is potential energy just before it is activated, just before eruption. She is the thrill you feel in your fingertips as you send that last few words to someone on the other end of the line just as the clock is ticking midnight.
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‘Blonde’ by Frank Ocean (2016)
When you’re up late going back and forth with someone over text, there is a sense of vulnerability about the whole thing. It takes a special kind of relationship to inspire late-night conversation. It’s a big thing to feel so small in the hands of another. And that is just what Frank Ocean conveys on his 2016 LP, Blonde. He’s laid bare for legions of fans to take in, to examine.
’22, A Million’ by Bon Iver (2016)
Listening to Bon Iver is like being let in on a secret. Suddenly, you’re confronted by whispered wisdom from on high. The lights flickering in the sky are telling you something, the echoes from the winds, too. When you’re up late, texting with a loved one, they might let you in on these kinds of secrets, too. It’s a beautiful thing when it happens between two people, when you can hear it all.
‘Carrie & Lowell’ by Sufjan Stevens (2015)
You never know when the next chapter of your life might begin. It could come from a job offer, it could come from a song lyric, or it could come from a late-night text. Somehow, something about Sufjan Stevens’ music gets to the heart of this dynamic. Somehow he understands that the future—that fate—can turn on a moment. Any moment. This moment.
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