Favorite Albums Of 2016
An all-time bad year with an all-time great outpouring of music.
2016 was…bad. Globally, the world felt uneasy. At times, completely broken. Too many killings, too many wars, too many leaders put in place who have no business being there, too many Brexits. Culturally, we saw some of the greatest taken from us—and right until the end, it never seemed to let up. But despite this, 2016, for whatever reason, produced one of the most fantastic years, musically. Music, like few other things, goes on. It serves as the background, the foreground, and pours through all the cracks regardless of everything else. In a year so trying, I believe we got the music we needed.
Coming off of the musically great 2015, it was hard to imagine something better, or more important. Yet, 2016 not only exceeded expectations but wound up delivering what I probably consider to be the greatest music year of my lifetime. Wow.
Thanks to the tracking that last.fm offers, the data shows that I listened to more music this year than any previous. More unique artists, more unique albums, more unique songs. More, more, more. It’s easy to track quantitative data. It’s hard to track qualitative data. But, I believe the quality of my listening improved, too. I obsessed more. I dove in deeper, I watched more videos on YouTube and read more interviews. I read reviews every day. I took full advantage one of the few bright spots of what was being produced this year. And I think I learned a lot about myself and my preferences.
Why do I do this every year? I want to understand why something is good and why I like it. I want to force myself to find the words to articulate it as best I can and then do it again the next year and get better. But I also want to track my taste as it evolves and grows and opens up or closes off. The coolest thing for me was to see the range in diversity of artists who made my list this year. Half of my top albums come from artists of color. A quarter from women. Exposing myself to these perspectives has unlimited reach. These are the voices that are coming into my house, my car, the voices that my daughter hears. I’ve seen the power of representation in how she reacts to artists. We can’t go a day without listening to Shut Up Kiss Me or watching the Don’t Touch My Hair or Cranes In The Sky video. We talk about Strong Girls and then watch their music videos. I have a responsibility to continue to listen to all types of music and keep exposing myself, and my family to a wide range of voices and perspectives.
Due to the richness of music that was gifted us, it felt impossible to try to capture it all in my typical list of 10 favorites and so, I’ve expanded it to 20 because this year demands it. Also, because I’m A Graphic Designer™ I’ve included a rating for each’s album art.
20. Anderson .Paak — Malibu
It took me a while to come around on Malibu. It was an early release this year, which afforded me some time to “get to it later”.” I was aware of it, I strolled through once or twice, but didn’t sink my teeth in. Then in September, I watched his Tiny Desk Concert. Seeing him playing drums and singing along gleefully with his sunglasses and hat and puffy white shirt did something for me that the album hadn’t to that point—it made him a person. He was funny, real, and, without argument, smart and talented. I was hooked. I went back and listened to Malibu with new ears and found a whole new experience. In the nebulous (and increasingly unimportant) space between rapping and singing, .Paak’s voice is one of the most unique of the year—his slight rasp cuts through whatever it’s dropped into. And while he kept busy making good records this year, don’t be fooled, Malibu is definitely better than his NxWorries record Yes Lawd!
19. Porches — Pool
Aaron Maine’s voice is clarity. With impeccable steadiness and sureness, how he sings his words carries equal weight to what he sings. It plays with great balance to the at times soft or washy synths and guitars that back his sound. In part to the directness of this sound, I fell in love with this record immediately—like, seconds into the first track immediately—and it stayed in rotation all year. Despite it’s summery name, due to it’s winter release it feels pretty cool and chilling to me in it’s sound, which works so well, but this record also found some new life in the summer nights—the pulsing synths almost powering my car home.
My favorite moments on this incredibly easy listening record are when he brings in the voice of Greta Kline, his girlfriend, singer of Frankie Cosmos, and the other half of Music’s Secretly Best Power Couple. I hope their relationship is as compatible as their voices are when they lock together. Because, baby, they were born to be together.
18. Parquet Courts—Human Performance
After years of extreme caution, I have finally wrestled with Parquet Courts and won. Or they won. Someone won. What I mean to say is that this album is great and I enjoy it. It’s can be tough to chew at points, but like celery, or anything else tough to chew, when you stick with it, its merit is clear.
Deep, deep in the shag of Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground, and Talking Heads, on Human Performance, Parquet Courts walk the narrow path between being aggressive and friendly, noisy and humane. Check out the painful crunching of guitars on I Was Just Here into Paraphrased versus the just-qualifying-as-not-silly bongo work of One Man No City right into rolling guitar of Berlin Got Blurry—which is not only one of the year’s best songs but the most interesting thing a white guy with a guitar has done this year.
Where does this record position Parquet Courts for the future? I feel incredibly uncertain. I don’t feel as if they’ve turned a new leaf, and I can’t say the next wrestle will have a clear victor, but for this year, and this album, and this moment, everything is in its right place.
17. Pinegrove—Cardinal
2016 was the year we became extremely liberal with the recently back in vogue (and ultimately harmless) label of “emo” in which anything resembling a whiff of Jade Tree got the tag despite being more parts The Decemberists than The Promise Ring… at least that’s the story for Pinegrove.
Regardless what label Pinegrove gets, emo or otherwise, it does nothing to detract from this little nugget, Cardinal, they put out this year. Thoughtful and dense lyrics, soulful annunciations, interesting but never too complex melodies, twanged out guitar licks—it’s all kinds of big ideas stuffed into, really, a not so big package. And that’s no knock. It’s just a young band going for it because it’s the only way they know how, and that’s always fun.
In some ways Pinegrove is the sort of band that seems bred for a YouTube session. In the studio and on tour the songs are dolled up and fleshed out with a rotating cast of support, but at the heart is really just Evan Stephens Hall and his acoustic guitar. Swaying in an echoey hall. And his huge gaping mouth belting it out with all the heart—that’s unavoidable, but awesome.
16. Whitney—Light Upon The Lake
I first heard No Woman as an early one-off single on Spotify and spent the next few months playing the woozy track out, anxiously waiting for the album to arrive. It’s a fascinatingly relaxing song with a uniquely off-center soft crooner and a perfect mix of guitar licks and horns. Light Upon The Lake wound up being an album that capitalized on all of these things over and over throughout the span of the album’s 10 songs.
As most know by now, Whitney is made up by guys who’ve been at times billed as the auxiliary, less important members of Smith Westerns and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but this album reveals them to be, big surprise, the actually-just-as-important-and-maybe-more-interesting ones. There are flavors of each of those former bands woven into Light Upon The Lake, but Whitney, of course, finds their unique place apart from each. To me, the unique vocal stylings of my favorite singing drummer since Levon Helm — polarizing to some — give Whitney an edge on each of their previous acts.
It’s a toasty warm rock record seemingly centered around the general concept of love that I think goes pretty unmatched this year in terms of efforts in that arena. An arena that, yes, is so packed, but when done right, never gets old.
15. Japanese Breakfast—Psychopomp
Hi there, long-time Michelle Zauner fan here. Back again to speak the truth on one of my favorite voices in music—ever.
Psychopomp was on my list of albums I was extremely looking forward to in 2016 as her track record of putting out great albums sings for itself. So, it’s not with much surprise this album winds up on this list. When I heard she had a new project it was a feeling of aw, shucks, what happened to Little Big League, followed by, well, I will follow you into the dark with whatever this next thing is. And the dark wound up being…dark.
Pyschopomp is—among other things—her dealing with her mother’s death. An unfair and untimely loss that I don’t know how anyone deals with. It’s painful to listen to because it’s painful to imagine yourself facing the same thing.
The album opens up with her singing “The dog’s confused / She just paces around all day /She’s sniffing at your empty room.” A plain, easily looked past aspect to losing someone, but hell if it doesn’t crush you.
The apex of the album comes with the titular instrumental track that splits the beginning from the end in which we hear an audio clip of her mother speaking to her over the phone. “Okay, sweetheart, don’t cry honey, I love you.” The first time I heard this I cried. It’s a reminder that we’re all children with parents who love us—and crushingly, eventually, all of us will lose them. Untimely, unfair.
Even with the deep sadness and pain, it’s not all darkness. This album manages to challenge gender stereotypes and remind us that women are exceptionally powerful. The excellent videos for In Heaven and Everybody Wants To Love You feature half naked men in bathtubs playing the background role to Zauner and a biker chick who comes to rescue her, respectively. A light pouring through the cracks.
“Don’t you think you should try to do as little harm as you can to the woman that loves you?” Yes. I do.
14. The Hotelier—Goodness
This is probably the most surprising album to make the list. Mainly because I have an easier time calling The Hotelier “emo” than I do Pinegrove. They’re pretty “rock band”, which I have an ever-waning tolerance for at this point in my life, and, until this album, you could make an argument for grouping them in with the “pop punk” groups—a sect I have a acidity to worse than “emo.”
But thanks largely to Ian Cohen’s Hotelier excitement I found myself wanting to give this a shot. I appreciate anyone who’s super excited about any specific thing, and it turns out, my assumptions were a little unfairly prejudiced.
Yes, it’s rocky, yes, it’s a total Band, it could be twisted into an “emo” or “pop punk” label, but it’s not really egregiously any of those things. It’s built on perfect energy, super guitar tones, captivating lyrics, and an album cover of naked old people. It deserves a shot.
I really like that even in 2016 there is still space for a band to make a record like this. The way music is trending, it’s hard to imagine something like this ever being the most interesting or important record of a year but Goodness is proof that this space isn’t extinct yet. The Hotelier is my favorite of all the bands to embrace or evade the “emo” tag because they most easily transcend it.
13. Kendrick Lamar—untitled unmastered.
The king stay the king. It’s pretty telling that even a surprise release of 8 demos from the To Pimp A Butterfly sessions can make the splash that untitled unmastered. did. It’s the evidence of Kendrick being the best rapper doing it right now.
As a Kendrick super fan, hearing the stirring of a potential release and then hours later having it come to be, it was an unbelievable treat, I felt spoiled. I played the crap out of it on repeat for weeks, dissecting lyrics on genius.com as I listened, I bought a limited edition signed vinyl—I felt transported to high school when all you have to do is obsess over bands. It was kind of a magical thing to happen.
This album, even in it’s untitled and unmastered state is great because its creator is great. The rawness or unfinished qualities are forgivable at their worst and rabbit holes to explore in the Kendrick mythology at their luckiest.
If nothing else, I cherish this as a hold-me-over until the next great proper release from the current great rapper.
12. Andy Shauf—The Party
This is, by far, the most criminally underrated and under-recognized album of the year. Loosely a concept album, it focuses on different folks attending the same party. He’s got a crooked little voice which makes for some uniquely special delivery of certain phrases as he illustrates every scene. Each song is told as delicately and precisely as the instrumentation backing it. Beautiful guitar, dizzying string arrangements, woodwinds to cozy up to, a strolling bass, and a recurring steady piano—the concept might be the thing to intrigue you, but the music is the clear star. It’s reminiscent of Elliott Smith both in style and somberness.
The Party is one of the most beautifully produced records I’ve heard in a while. Each note feels necessary and deserving and in turn the album feels complete and whole. I have little explanation as to how or why this flew under the radar this year. It’s one of the most uniquely crafted songwriter efforts of recent.
11. Frankie Cosmos—Next Thing
Great Kline has the sweetest voice. It’s soft and charming and always convincing. I like that about Frankie Cosmos. It makes me feel safe and welcome. Next Thing embodies all of those qualities as good as they’ve ever been on a Frankie Cosmos record and this easily qualifies as her best yet. Also, shout out to the Michael Hurley style album art. It feels exceptionally fitting in the Cosmos-verse.
Just as with her previous records, Next Thing is filled with jingle-like melodies and perfect and left-field quips. “Sometimes I feel sinister, can’t always turn to Arthur” she sings of battling her sadness without the help of turning to the great Arthur Russell.
My favorite part of Greta Kline’s writing—both lyrically and musically—is her ability to pack a punch. In both cases is the writing simple and undecorated. It doesn’t really require much more and she’s particularly great at being direct. I appreciate and am in awe of how easily it seems to come for her. Frankie Cosmos is a reminder that sometimes you just do and then you are.
10. Beyoncé—Lemonade
I’ve always liked and respected Beyoncé as a figure but never as much as an artist. The music felt void of proper distinction given her authority. She’s heralded as the queen, certainly there has to be privileges to that that can afford something more interesting? The messages felt weakened by the lack of clear artistry. It was obviously not poor—but it was not unequivocally good and I felt no attraction to it. Beyoncé albums have been accepted as good because we love Beyoncé. But are they? Or are we blinded by love?
When Lemonade came out, it finally did what none of her previous efforts had done—it stood on its own as a piece of art without the aid of Beyoncé as purveyor. Instead of her usual relationship of star and supportive output, it was flipped to be output with supportive star. Her perspective, her brand, her voice, they were all used to build up the vision and execution of Lemonade. The distinction is rare in pop super-stardom.
The visual album for Lemonade is stunning. I’m not quite sure the shelf life of it, or the future of visual albums in general, but for Beyoncé in spring 2016, it was appropriate. It’s clear, captivating, and a covers a wide range of emotion. As a personal bonus, I also can’t stand Jay-Z and that she was calling him out on his infidelity in the most public and assassin-like way was reinforcement to the idea of Beyoncé As Queen. But that she would then open her entire process of healing to us—beyond just the revenge on Jay-Z the bad husband—solidified her strength. This is about her. Jay-Z is not part of this story.
Musically, this is teeming with her most interesting and expansive work yet. It’s a laundry list of collaborators from Father John Misty to Ezra Koenig to Kendrick Lamar to James Blake (featuring the best thing he’s done this year) to Jack White (featuring the best thing he’s done this year). The samples are equally expansive. To my initial complaint with Beyoncé records, it’s ultimately the music and its ability to stay on mission that makes Lemonade a success.
9. Angel Olsen—My Woman
My Woman is Angel Olsen hitting her stride. A phenomenal album to follow up a couple great albums is so uncommon it needs proper attention and celebration. With My Woman Angel Olsen asserts herself as one of the leading forces in the crop of this generation’s great song writers.
“Stop pretending I’m not there / When it’s clear I’m not going anywhere” In the context of Shut Up Kiss Me this is directed at the other side of the relationship, but it could easily be the mantra for Angel as an artist. We’re never going back to a world before Angel.
This album takes the things little ol’ AO has done well and does them bigger and better. The ballads are grander, the rocking parts are heavier, the impressive vocal parts are more brilliant, and the confidence in songwriting is more incredible. It feels like she has grown into herself—fulfilled the inevitable storyline of the folk singer who was always going to rock so much harder and rule so much more finally rising to power.
An important theme to what I listened to this year was how it related to my family life. I want to listen to music with my daughter that is appropriate for my daughter. I don’t mean that in the parental advisory sense—we listen to Run The Jewels together, too—I mean it in the sense of showing her strong women that offer a positive view of women in music. We watched the video for Shut Up Kiss Me once and then we watched it every day. “Listen Shut Up Kiss Me on Mommy’s red phone?” is a question I field daily. That’s what I wanted. Angel Olsen provided an opportunity for my daughter to see herself in a musician. These opportunities are out there, and Angel Olsen happened to be the one for us.
Angel Olsen was also the lone concert I attended in 2016. A live act as good the album.
8. Radiohead—A Moon Shaped Pool
The release of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool was one of the defining moments in my realization that 2016 was an exceptionally spoiled year for music. We were due—2016 was 5 years since The King Of Limbs, the longest span between any of their records. 5 years is a long time. And when with every Radiohead record brings totally new sound, it feels even longer. But still, the biggest and best band in the world dropping an album to yet again expand and grow was far more than I could have asked for.
Ranking Radiohead albums is kind of silly. The closest thing to it is ranking Beatles albums. Steven Hyden writes in his book Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me about how he never ranks Beatles albums because you can’t bet against The Beatles—you’ll always lose. It’s true. I feel like Radiohead is dangerously close to having the same be said of them. And yet, with The Beatles and with Radiohead, it’s hard to not imagine yourself invincible and go for it anyway. Pablo Honey is an obvious last place entry, but from there, it’s pretty much up for grabs. You could make an argument for any album being their best and you wouldn’t be outright wrong. The Bends gets a funny look from me, and OK Computer tells me you don’t really love them, but you’re not a fool for picking either. So when A Moon Shaped Pool came out it was immediately in the running for Radiohead’s best album. That’s crazy. They put out Kid A. No band who puts out an album like Kid A should ever make a follow up album even conceivably close to being better. But again, biggest and best band in the world.
A Moon Shaped Pool is filled with brilliant sounds and song construction, nothing short of typical Radiohead greatness. Highlights include the dizzying effect of the dollying Daydreaming, the Tomorrow Never Knows-esque cacophony of Ful Stop, the je ne sais quoi of Identikit that makes it sound like you’ve heard it (in their discography) before, and their ability to take the common and make it sound completely foreign as they do on Present Tense.
To be part of digesting Radiohead albums as they are released is one of the most incredible privileges we have as music listeners at this time. One day, they’ll be all be over and we’ll be forced to make a definitive rank of their work and live with it. Until then, eagerly and graciously smuggling away everything they give us.
7. Bon Iver—22, A Million
When I first heard the first few early releases from 22, A Million my initial thought was that I was listening to completely new sounds—futuristic sounds. And yeah, it sounds like nothing I’ve heard before. It explores sound and structure in the way a Radiohead record does. Songs sound pulled apart apart, mixed back together, pulled apart again. Songs actually hardly feel like songs. They’re more collections of appropriate sounds. It’s near-impossible to comprehend how they were written. There is no clear starting place for how this comes together. Pitched voices, glitched out clips, heavily vocoded harmonies, it’s all strangely beautiful when mixed together. And not like, ‘there’s beauty in everything’ beautiful, but like, seriously beautiful. Justin Vernon is now more than ever clearly a genius who’s obsessed with his craft.
Looking back, the jump from For Emma, Forever Ago to Bon Iver felt drastic—and it was—but the jump from Bon Iver to 22, A Million actually feels larger. The last time around it felt like a natural progression to what Bon Iver was. Escaping the cabin story only took time outside of the cabin. This time, it feels like a more intentional distancing. A heavily considered attempt to push things farther. Sometimes, that can feel obvious and trite, but when it’s successful, as it is here, it’s admirable and inspiring.
This also has some of my favorite album artwork of all time. As mythic and confusing, and ultimately as beautiful as the music it stands in front of.
6. Young Thug—Jeffery
When I attempt to explain to people what it is about Young Thug that has me infatuated I usually start with his voice. I’m a sucker for a distinct voice being used in an idiosyncratic way and Young Thug is about as good an example of that as there is. He has this squawk that makes each line a fascinating moment, important to the texture of each song. On Jeffery he undulates between cartoonish caws, incomprehensible slurs, overly emphatic ad libs, and any thinkable way to transcode the sounds coming from his mouth into something freshly strange. Each second of a Young Thug song is an opportunity to litter it with sound. Gaps in bars and rests between beats are frequently filled with a desperate squeal or wheezed woop which becomes a predictable if not looked sought after decoration. There is urgency is every breath.
I was turned on to Young Thug last year on his surprising feature on Jamie xx’s I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times) and fell in love with his sound. When he released the great Slime Season 3 earlier this year, I played it to death. It, like all Thugger releases, is equal parts filthy and fun, and had Jeffery never came out, it might be Slime Season 3 on this list instead. It was the crash course I needed to fully and completely ready myself for the release of Jeffery.
I think that at first glance it’s incredibly easy to dismiss Young Thug. He’s a gangster rapper who’s music could be qualified as trap music. This is not typically a space for the thinking man’s rapper. But this viewpoint is unfairly narrow. At several points on Jeffrey and pretty much any time he does an interview, Young Thug advocates for a more progressive world. Specifically as it relates to gender stereotypes. In a promo for Calvin Klein jeans he says “In my world, you can be a gangsta with a dress or you can be a gangsta with baggy pants.” It could be dismissed as art to see him in a dress on his album cover, but in the hip hop community, he is taking a stance against the hyper masculinity that rappers are prescribed.
Beyond his vocal performances and social crusading, you can always count on Young Thug to deliver his verses deeply shrouded in code. Oddball lyrics flow like there’s no turning them off. Nothing is ever quite as literal as he speaks it and trying to figure out what he’s actually alluding to is half the fun of listening.
5. A Tribe Called Quest—We got it from Here…Thank You 4 Your service
I was totally resigned to having missed the Tribe boat. It was from the 90s, for the 90s, and to get into them at this point felt like I was a faker. Plus, 90s rap doesn’t hold up well for me. I don’t like 2pac or Biggie. I don’t like Nas. I don’t care for Wu-Tang Clan. I’m a bad guy. For each, I can understand their significance and respect their place in the history of rap music, but I don’t actually enjoy listening to any of them because the sound is so…dated. Rap music moves quickly and a few years, let alone a few decades, can leave you sounding irrelevant.
But We got it from here came out and I decided to give it an honest shake. The idea of a group coming together 18 years after their next most recent album to put out one final album is daring, it calls a stage light on yourself. You have the chance to show you never lost it, or you risk proving everyone right in their assessment that your best days are in the 90s. Strangely, 2016 welcomed new albums from The Avalanches, American Football, and A Tribe Called Quest. Each putting out records after 16, 17, and 18 years, respectively. Their fanbases greeted the albums with desperation—16 years is an incredibly long time—but Tribe’s album was the only of the three I saw as necessary. And to American Football: your best days are in the 90s.
What struck me right away was that We got it from here sounded current. The flows are still a little hip hoppy bee boppy, but I actually appreciate these guys in their 40s not trying to sound like Migos. The music, the production, the features (Kendrick! Kanye! Anderson .Paak! André 3000!) give it an authentic place in this year. My worst fear was off the table and I was able to appreciate the album for its genius.
This album came out the Friday after the election. I was reeling in the depression and horror of the unthinkable Donald Trump victory. It was a hopeless and horrifying week that we haven’t even seen the worst of. But in that darkness, a final gift.
“All you Black folks, you must go / All you Mexicans, you must go / And all you poor folks, you must go / Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways / So all you bad folks, you must go”
Repeating Trump’s rhetoric right back at him, this is not only a reminder that he is historically racist, but also a maniacal liar who will say anything to hoard more power, but it becomes a rallying cry against him. “We don’t believe you, cause we the people.”
So, it turns out that A Tribe Called Quest is as relevant and necessary as anyone else in 2016. And one last album as we enter the forsaken Trump years is a final parting gift we’ll all need.
RIP Phife.
4. Frank Ocean—Blonde
Between the release of Channel Orange and Blonde I had the time to get into Frank Ocean. Channel Orange, while universally accepted as great, took me years to get into. And it is great, but it felt like hard work to get there for me. Call me crazy, but it lacks some form. Blonde on the other hand was one of the easiest albums to get into all year—and by contrast, is shaped entirely and acutely by form.
In waiting for Blonde to arrive, we had little to stew on. Frank Ocean is a mystery who doesn’t follow normal conventions or expectations. We’re left to grab on to what we’re tossed, and try to find meaning in it. Unsurprisingly, Blonde doesn’t offer much in clearing anything up. It brings new complexities and mysteries. His dealing with his fame, his struggle with the public’s perception of his sexuality are as complicated as ever.
Here’s what did become clear: Nobody sings like Frank—his voice is transcendent and crisp. He’s a master of minimalism—each song on the dream-like Blonde feels intentionally reduced. He’s on a different plane, operating with different controls. And Blonde feels less like an invitation to be a part of that world, and more like an outline of the walls that surround him. His privacy is not leaving.
3. Blood Orange—Freetown Sound
Freetown Sound is a journey into the mind of Dev Hynes. It is politically charged, unafraid to approach class or gender, and all the right types of frantic. Ideas converge, hop around, duck in an out, and all circle the eye of the hurricane—race. It’s frenetically excellent.
In the closing lines of a poem by Ashlee Haze that open the intro track By Ourselves, we hear her plead “I will tell you that right now there are a million black girls just waiting to see someone who looks like them.” It’s a powerful set up to the album. It speaks to the necessary representation our children deserve, but it also tackles race head on. It’s a warning to the dangers of being black in America.
In the Arthur Russell-esque Hands Up Dev sings “Keep your hood off when you’re walkin…Hands Up, Get Out, Hands Up, Get Out”. In the outro to Love Ya which features a clip of a talk by Ta-Nehisi Coates where he describes getting dressed for school as a middle schooler: “Now every morning, how I was gonna wear my backpack. Was I gonna strap it over one shoulder or two shoulders? How was I gonna cock my baseball hat? Was I gonna wear it straight, cock it to the left, cock it to the right? How was I gonna wear my pants? Cause I don’t wear ’em really baggy, or not? Which shoes was I gonna wear? Who was I gonna walk with to school? How many of ’em were gonna…” The clip cuts off. For most white Americans you never need to think of the way you wore your hat as being a factor in your safety. Remember that this is not true for everyone.
Musically, Freetown Sound dances through, funk, soul, 80s-like synths and drum pads to create an aesthetic that feels unique to Dev Hynes. A small sampling of all of this working in perfect conjunction is the video for Augustine, my favorite video of the year. It feels like a different world—one of hope. For being able to address race and inequality so directly, Freetown Sound does a great job of being able to identify and celebrate our differences and likenesses the same.
2. Kanye West—The Life Of Pablo
Kanye West is nothing if not exciting. I am to captive to the things he does because, to everyone’s dismay, what he says is true—he’s a genius. The music he puts out in consistently incredible. Always fresh, always pushing boundaries, always setting a new bar for the rest of the world’s music to crawl out in its shadow. No rapper has stayed at the top of the game for as long as Kanye has. And it’s because he’s the one who’s writing the rules. The Life Of Pablo, as all of his previous album have done, created a whole set of new standards.
The release of TLOP was a kind of a huge mess. The album name changed 3 times, the release date kept getting pushed back, the cover art changed after it was released, the track list was being changed moments up to it’s release (and then again after it’s release—more on that to come). It was chaotic. But here’s the thing. I loved every second of it. It was exciting to wake up and see what Kanye had tweeted the night before. What clues had he released? What was the album being called now? Who was the latest feature to be added or scrapped? The chaos was a weapon he was yielding. And I was at its mercy. I’ve never anticipated an album the way I did this one—at least not since mewithoutYou’s 2004 Catch For Us The Foxes—which, high school obsessions are a force to be reckoned with.
I was nervous as we approached the initial promise release date because there was no sign the album was actually finished. It was exciting, yes, but it was only exciting if it delivered on a promise. To dangle a carrot with no intention to let us have it is cruel. The release wound up being delayed by a few days. In the breathtaking February SNL performance of Ultralight Beam Kanye concluded the song by scampering around grunting out that the album was available on his site. In the following days it made it to Tidal and eventually Spotify and Kanye kept tweeting. “Ima fix wolves.” he tweeted. Implying that he was going to make an alteration to his song Wolves which is on the album he just released. My fear for an unfinished album didn’t matter any more. Kanye broke the idea of a release. Why should an album be complete simply because it’s available for streaming? Kanye didn’t have a good answer for that. In a digital world of music, he was taking full advantage of what that affords you. In the next weeks, he published new mixes and cuts of the songs. He broke them apart into new tracks. Just as I followed along for hidden secrets prior to the release, I kept an ear to his twitter feed to hawk out any potential new changes in the latest push of his album. In the coming months he changes some mixes again. And added a new song all together. It was amazing. He made his album alive simply by writing the new rules yet again. Kanye West is a genius.
Kanye is complex and at times indefensible. But you can’t deny that he’s an artist and can’t deny that Kanye makes and the world takes. His critics are quick to point out that he’s a narcissist or that he’s crazy or annoying. But I believe that people don’t like him because he breaks the expectation of what we desire in our performers. We want creativity, but we want it on our terms. The worst things anyone has to say about Drake is that he’s corny. But even with that, he’s universally loved because he—for the most part—acts, looks, behaves, dances just like we are comfortable with. Kanye is none of those things. It is hard to accept. I think we are extra hard on him because he is a black man. If Taylor Swift—no, when Taylor Swift acts out in similar fashion, she is quickly praised as being strong and independent. Kanye is not afforded the same luxury. I think we are extra hard on him because he’s the husband of a Kardashian.
“I’m not out of control, I’m just not in [their] control”
Truth.
In the good, bad, and ugly moments of The Life Of Pablo and it’s surrounding collateral is one of the finest pieces of work in a museum-like collection of fine pieces of work. Kanye reclaims his spot at the forefront of leaders in music and we all benefit from it. If we are able to remove our prejudices.
1. Solange—A Seat At The Table
I fell in love with this album a little bit more every time I listened. The complexities kept unraveling, revealing its brilliance with each revisit, but, stated directly in the title of the album, the message is clear: I demand a seat at the table. Solange—as a woman, as a black american, as an artist—belongs.
A seat at the table is an apt metaphor that I really love. It challenges those with privilege—to be more empathetic, more inclusive, more open—but, importantly, it actually never asks you to give anything up. Those in power are scared of losing it. It causes people do to ugly and terrible things. It elected Donald Trump. But, affording someone else a seat at the table does not require you to give up yours. The table is big enough for everyone. And if it’s not? Get to building a bigger table. There are those who are begging just for an opportunity, and yet, because they are different, those in power, motivated by fear, refuse to give them one. This theme has a tragic and long history in our nation. White men have too long run the show, creating along the way—intentionally or not—a systemically racist culture, a culture that does not value or appreciate women, as a means of keeping in place what is familiar and comfortable to them.
A Seat At The Table is filled with interludes throughout. Each help move the album along by connecting narratives. In a clip with Solange’s mother she explains quite beautifully:
“I think part of it is accepting that it’s so much beauty in being black and that’s the thing that, I guess, I get emotional about because I’ve always known that. I’ve always been proud to be black. Never wanted to be nothing else. Loved everything about it, just…
It’s such beauty in black people, and it really saddens me when we’re not allowed to express that pride in being black, and that if you do, then it’s considered anti-white. No! You just pro-black. And that’s okay. The two don’t go together. Because you celebrate black culture does not mean that you don’t like white culture or that you putting it down. It’s just taking pride in it, but what’s irritating is when somebody says, you know, “They’re racist!”, “That’s reverse racism!” or, “They have a Black History Month, but we don’t have a White History Month!”
Well, all we’ve ever been taught is white history. So, why are you mad at that? Why does that make you angry? That is to suppress me and to make me not be proud.”
This is an important album that I felt responsible for bringing into my house with intention and attention. Music can powerfully shape your identity. It can make you aware and empathetic. And as a person who is involved in carefully shaping the mind of a 2 year old, I don’t want to mess up. We listen to a lot of music at home, and my kid likes some stuff and is fiercely ambivalent about other. She didn’t have much to say about Weezer (we’ll get there!), but Bob Dylan is king. Solange happened to be one of the artists she obsessed over. We’ve watched her incredible music videos (seriously, videos of the year) endlessly and she asks for Don’t Touch My Hair by name. She asks to put clips in her like Solange. “Solange is beautiful” she told me as we listened to “Junie” while putting on pajamas after her bath. I’m not trying to brag about my amazing kid or that I’ve done a cool thing by introducing her to that music, but I am trying to highlight the importance of it. What makes someone with privilege able to come out on the other side of a culture—one that is systemically doing it’s best to make you fall in line—with an understanding and compassion and a desire for equality? Could it be that it starts when the mind is young and impressionable?
This year, Solange had the most to say and said it in the most beautiful, urgent, and necessary way. I am grateful for an opportunity to take her teachings and turn them into something that lives and thrives beyond the wax.
“But you know that a king is only a man with flesh and bones, he bleeds just like you do He said, “Where does that leave you?” And, “Do you belong?”
I do.”
Superlatives and Mentionables
Even with pointing fingers at 20 great albums there was still plenty of great, interesting, and lack-luster music to note. Here are some additional albums that tickled me in 2016.
The Overtly Aggressive But Appropriately Cathartic Album Of The Year
PUP—The Dream Is Over
This is extremely off brand to my usual listening habits but something about this struck a chord with me and I blasted through it on repeat for a few weeks. Extremely high energy and lots of sweaty fun. If Modern Baseball wasn’t a bunch of nerds.
The I Can’t Wait For The Proper LP Album Of The Year
Jay Som—Turn Into
I played this a crap-ton. Lots of slightly off kilter melodies and cool riffs. I discovered her on a Spotify Discover Weekly playlist—so, they’ve earned their keep with me. Apparently a non-demos LP will be out in 2017—so, 2017 has earned its keep with me.
The Weirdo Rap Album Of The Year
Kweku Collins—Nat Love
Really fun and extremely Chicago. Excited for what this kid does next.
The It’s Good But Overrated Don’t @ Me Album Of The Year
Chance The Rapper—Coloring Book
Look, I like Chance. He’s obviously insanely talented and he’s approaching making music in a really refreshing way. But for me, and again, don’t @ me, he’s just a little too corny. I am extremely curious what a non-mixtape release would look like.
The I Tried Album Of The Year
Drake—Views
I’ve never liked Drake’s music but was seriously committed to getting into Views to turn that around. Maybe it’s just because this was the universally accepted as meh album, but I don’t get it. Drake is average.
The Dopest Little Nobody Album Of The Year
Caleb Groh—Ocelot
Always fun to find an artist you can claim as your own. Something you discovered completely independent of all media. Then hope they blow up and brag. We’re halfway through on that plan here.
The Yeeeeeeeessssss? Album Of The Year
Mutual Benefit—Skip A Sinking Stone
I like this album, but I can’t help but wonder if I like it because I loved Love’s Crushing Diamond, or if this album is uniquely good. Extremely pastoral and beautiful, it’s nice to listen to for whatever reason.
The Of Course This Is Good Album Of The Year
Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam—I Had A Dream That You Were Mine
I never was into The Walkmen but I feel like I should be now. Rostam post-Vampire Weekend has me really worried that he was the best part of Vampire Weekend and that the next Vampire Weekend, the post-Rostam Vampire Weekend is going to be not good. At least I’ll have this.
The Uhhhh, What Happened Here Album Of The Year
Local Natives—Sunlit Youth
Three great albums in a row is a daring feat that only the best can pull off. Local Natives came up short with Sunlit Youth as they ventured into some uncharted and plasticky territory. It’s not all bad, there are excellent moments, but as an album, yeesh.
The What Is This I Love It Album Of The Year
D.D Dumbo—Utopia Defeated
Zany-like guitar work and funky rhythms.
The I Like Where This Is Going Album Of The Year
Childish Gambino—“Awaken, My Love!”
Childish Gambino made Macklemore look like Kendrick Lamar. Thank the lord he has ditched the rapping and moved on to something empirically funkier. When I first heard “Awaken, My Love!” my first thought was “I like where this is going!”
The Owen Album Of The Year
American Football—American Football
(Imagine this sentence with the clap emoji in between each word) You Are Kidding Yourself If You Think This Is Seriously Not An Owen Album. I am definitely not a hater of bands reuniting and putting out new albums, but I kind of wish this didn’t exist.
The Best Album About Death Of The Year
David Bowie—Blackstar
That’s a little too unfairly reductionist for an album this great. It narrowly missed my top 20. But, it is an album about death and it is the best one. This is a legitimate gift from a star who knew he was dying and was trying to give it all away. Incredible.
Better Late Than Never
Every year it seems I wise up on some artist or album that I’ve been ignorant to for whatever reason. It is at time embarrassing but the title remains true. Better late than never.
Kendrick Lamar—Section 8.0
I was a good kid, m.A.A.d city and beyonder until this year. Going back to Kendrick’s less polished stuff was hard. But this album rips so hard. Some insanely excellent flows and lyricism—which, I can’t explain why I would have doubted that.
Arthur Russell
Goodness, Arthur Russell is one of the greatest of all time. It felt like he was coming into my life from all angles at one point in which I finally had to cave and dive in and lo and behold: it’s legitimately the best.
Keith Jarrett
I accidentally got super into Keith this year by stumbling across some deals on Discogs and then went super nova in seeking out more deals in record shops. He’s one of the all time prolific greats on the piano and we should all bow down.
