This was a good year.
For music, I mean.
Not… you know, the world.
Due to the sheer amount of albums I listened to last year, I felt it necessary to expand my top 10 to a top 25. And as such, I have very little desire to rank them, or write up why I liked them so much.
That said, I do have to state for the record that Mount Eerie’s “A Crow Looked At Me” is the best album of the year. It could never be my favorite, as it’s too harrowing a meditation on grief and loss for me to ever listen to it again. So much so that I thought about excluding it from the playlist altogther, as no matter where you put it on the playlist, that shit will immediately bring the party to a dead stop.
Er, so to speak.
Eventually, I decided to just include one song to give listeners a taste. But for the full “Don’t be like me and unwittingly put this on at the gym and wind up choking back tears on the elliptical” effect, you really should listen to the whole album.
Now, if I had to pick a favorite album as opposed to a best one out of the whole list… that’s a tall order. They’re all so good, and all for diefferent reasons.
Best, perhaps, to just let the music speak for itself:
However, if you’re one of those weirdos that just wants the words and not the music, here is a textacular list of all my favorite albums.
in reverse alphabetical order, just to mix it up:
ZOLA JESUS, “OKOVI”- There’s something vast and epic but also curiously intimate about the music Zola Jesus makes; this entire album sounds like she’s standing in the middle of a vast and empty planet, singing her heart out in the hopes that there’s someone on the other side can hear her.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Wiseblood”, “Soak”, “Exhumed”
YOUR OLD DROOG, “PACKS”- These guys should be huge, but they’re probably too good.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “GKAC”, “White Rappers (A Good Guest)”, “Grandma Hips”
VINCE STAPLES, “BIG FISH THEORY”- Okay, I admit it, I was the guy that didn’t see the big deal about “Summertime ’05”. But I’m fully on board now. His lyrics combined with those club music beats? Brilliant…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Crabs In a Bucket”, “Bagbak”, “Homage”
THUNDERCAT, “DRUNK”- I’m just going to come out and say it: Thundercat is Frank Zappa for black people. What that means is that he’s got virtuoso talent and a limitless, endlessly funky and soulful imagination that never fails him over the course of a wide ranging 23 tracks.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)”, “Captain Stupido”, “Where I’m Going”
SWET SHOP BOYS, “SUFI LA”- From the ashes of Das Racist, Heems teams up with Riz Ahmed to make you shake your ass. I don’t care if it’s only six tracks; brevity’s got soul and shit.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Anthem”, “Sufi La”, “Birding”
ST. VINCENT, “MASSEDUCTION”- Okay, so this is a more conventional version of the sound that I fell in love with 2014’s self titled album. But it’s still sleek, sexy, and touching in equal measure.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Hang On Me”, “Los Ageless”, “New York”
SPOON, “HOT THOUGHTS”- In a chaotic, confusing year, at least we could count on Spoon to do that thing it does better than pretty much anyone else, which is make really fun and catchy power pop.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Hot Thoughts”; “First Caress”; “Shotgun”
RUN THE JEWELS, “RUN THE JEWELS 3”- When your first two albums are Run The Jewels and Run The Jewels 2 (to say nothing of motherfucking Meow The Jewels), it’s inevitable that you take a stumble sooner or later. But on the other hand, when you’re El-P and Killer Mike, a stumble means you get 95/100 instead of 100/100, because they’re literally incapable of actually being anything less than great.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Talk To Me”, “Panther Like a Panther”, “Legend Has It”
ROYAL BLOOD, “HOW DID WE GET SO DARK?”- People who have been forced to listen to me rant have heard my whole spiel about how it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to find quality examples of hooky, right-down-the-line solid guitar driven hard rock with no bells and whistles. Out of all the many, many albums I listened to this year, Royal Blood are the only ones that scratched that particular itch. And even more impressive, they did it better than the usual go-to for these things, Queens of the Stone Age…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Look Like You Know”, “Hook Line and Sinker”, “How Did We Get So Dark?”
OPEN MIKE EAGLE, “BRICK BODY KIDS STILL DAYDREAM”- Dude, his very first track is a song about The Juggernaut.
This was never not going to wind up on this list…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Legendary Iron Hood”, “Brick Body Complex”, “No Selling (Uncle Butch Pretending It Don’t Hurt)”
NIIA, “I”- There was no shortage of breathy R&B chanteuses trying to break out from the pack this year, but the one I liked most was Niia. Relentlessly sensual and cool.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Sideline”, “Hurt You First”, “Nobody”
MR. JUKES, “GOD FIRST”- Holy shit, I just found out this is the side project of the frontman for Bombay Bicycle Club! I have no idea how you go from this to this, but however that works color me impressed.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Angels/Your Love”, “Leap of Faith”, “Grant Green”
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, “GOTHS”- This is the second time John Darnielle has made a goofy concept album parody that’s also achingly sincere at times, and the second time he’s made it on my favorite albums list. I’m dealing with it fine right now, but if this happens a third time, I’m definitely going to flip the fuck out…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “We Do It Different On The West Coast”, “Rain In Soho”, “Shelved”
MOUNT EERIE, “A CROW LOOKED AT ME”- Abolsutely and utterly devastating and transcendant. You have to listen to it all, from beginning to end.
STANDOUT TRACKS: n/a
LIL B, “BLACK KEN”- As a man with very strict ideas of how long an album can be before the quality starts to drop, I was all set to hate this album on general principle. 99 minutes??? Get the fuck outta here! But against all odds, Lil B manages to sustain a general good vibe over Black Ken’s 27 tracks. It’s an acquired taste to be sure, but his mix of hazy digital beats and SUPER DUPER Old School Flow managed to sustain my interest pretty much the entire time.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “DJ BasedGod”, “Zam Bose (In San Jose)”, “Wasup JoJo”
KING KRULE, “THE OOZ”- Yeah, yeah… this is a really impressive album, moody and and woozy and odd in all the right places. And “Biscuit Town” may very well be my favorite song of the whole year. But do me a favor: listen to this, and then look at this fucking photo.
Yeah, I don’t get it either…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Biscuit Town”, “Lonely Blue”, “Slush Puppy”, “Czech One”
KENDRICK LAMAR, “DAMN.”- Come on, it’s Kendrick.
What were you expecting?
STANDOUT TRACKS: “ELEMENT.”, “FEAR.”, “LOYALTY. FT. RIHANNA”
JOHN MAUS, “SCREEN MEMORIES”- I have no idea who the hell this dude is, but I really got a kick out of his whole cinematic, tongue-in-cheek Goth/Glam/New Wave vibe.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Pets”, “Teenage Witch”, “The Combine”
G HERBO, “HUMBLE BEAST”- This is how good a year it was for rap: I even liked the mainstream stuff! But nothing came close to impressing me as much as G Herbo’s debut. Decent beats and putting actual thought into your lyrics goes a long way with me… plus if there’s a better sample this year than C-Sick flipping “Diamonds Are Forever” for “Red Snow”, I would know about it. But I don’t, because there isn’t.
THAT MOTHERFUCKER BEAT KANYE AT HIS OWN GAME!!!!!!
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Everything”, “Trials”, “Malcolm”, “Red Snow”
FOXYGEN, “HANG”- The ever eclectic duo behind Foxygen can do a lot of thing really well, out of all of them one of the most impressive is their ability to bring back that 70s sound without coming off like total cheeseballs. Even the 70’s stuff that was supposed to sound like the 20’s!
Come on, guys; that’s pretty impressive…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Trauma”, “Avalon”, “Follow The Leader”
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING, “A FEVER DREAM”- 2015’s “Get To Heaven” was one of my favorites, and while this follow-up isn’t quite as strong, it’s still got enough of the kind of hook-centric indie rock I have a weakness to make the cut.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Night of the Long Knives”, “Desire”, “Ivory Tower”
DESTROYER, “KEN”- Dan Bejar’s lyrics are bleak as hell, but there’s something soothing in his empty, wasted voice (his words not mine) mixed with his contemplative brand of synthetic soundscapes. A strangely conforting gaze into the abyss.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Tinseltown Swimming In Blood”, “Saw You At The Hosptial”, “Sometimes In The World”
DELICATE STEVE, “THIS IS STEVE”- I don’t know if it’s just one dude or an actual band, but this album of cheeky instrumentals is a playful blast of electric guitar fun. If “Cartoon Rock” doesn’t play in your head whenever you get behind the wheel of a Cadillac Coupe, you’re driving it wrong.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Winners”, “Help”, “Cartoon Rock”
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, “REST”- Much like Foxygen spent 2017 digging up the corpse of 70s soft rock and making it feel vital, Charlotte did the same thing with Euro Disco. Giorgio Moroder would be proud…
STANDOUT TRACKS: “I’m a Lie”, “Deadly Valentine”, “Lying With You”
ALGIERS, “THE UNDERSIDE OF POWER”- In which Franklin James Fisher and his bandmates take 45 minutes to both invent and perfect the Industrial Spiritual.
STANDOUT TRACKS: “Cry of the Martyrs”, “A Murmur. A Sign.”, “Cleveland”
Pryorball. 
