There’s lots of talk about 2016 being a tough year, a strange year – a year full of drama, tension, uncertainty, frustration… sounds a lot like my teenage years. And one thing I did as a teenager was look for comfort and identity in music. I’d say I did quite a bit of that in 2016 as well.
Here’s part 1 of my annual “Best of” music review. The music I’m listing is the “Best” based on it being my personal favorite: the music that I listened to the most, that I found the most interesting, that spoke to me the most, or that I felt was most worthy of recommending.
FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2016
1. Teens of Denial, Car Seat Headrest – No hesitation, no debate. This was clearly my favorite album of the year. Each song in the album twists and turns, changes direction, sometimes almost frantically, but like the best joy ride it rattles along on the edge of control without ever loosing momentum or intent – and always remaining kick-ass rock and roll.
2. We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, A Tribe Called Quest – This band was my gateway into (good) rap music back in the 90’s although I didn’t come to fully explore and appreciate their full catalog until a decade later. Now they come back with an album that maintains the same soulful groove of their original sound while making it fresh and topical – so topical that the timing was almost eerie.
3. MY WOMAN, Angel Olsen – Olsen’s last album was all low-fi and although it was well received by the critics I felt all the fuzz and distortion got in the way of song writing that would pull me in. With this 2016 release, Olsen has changed gears significantly and put together the album Kurt Cobain was thinking of when he said the future of rock and roll was women.
4. A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Sturgill Simpson – I had to sit with this album a bit to fully appreciate it. I think the key was listening to it all the way through, in it’s entirety, as a complete work – and that’s exactly how Simpson intended it. (Seeing Simpson touring for the album and playing it live also helped solidify it for me.) The album is many things: it’s a touching perspective on fatherhood, a blurring of musical genres while paying special homage to the soul and R&B influenced country of the 70’s, and it’s a second middle-finger to the mainstream country music establishment (Simpson’s previous album being the first middle -finger).
5. American Band, Drive-By Truckers – This isn’t my favorite DBT album. I’ll say up front that I think it lacks the same musicality and catchy tunefullness that many of their past albums have. But its lyrical power and timeliness are undeniable and make this an album that has to be appreciated. Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley have always embraced the complexity of real people and this album is probably their most impactful work from that standpoint.
“He was running down the street when they shot him in his tracks
About the only thing agreed upon is he ain’t coming back
There won’t be any trial so the air it won’t be cleared
There’s just two sides calling names out of anger and of fear
If you say it wasn’t racial when they shot him in his tracks
well I guess that means that you ain’t black, it means that you ain’t black
I mean Barack Obama won and you can choose where to eat
but you don’t see too many white kids lying bleeding on the street” – from “What It Means”
6. Dancing with Bad Grammar, L.A. Salami – This is an album that seems to take the lyrical poetry hinted at in the best hip-hop and bends it towards Bob Dylan’s rambling acoustic style. There’s a lot going on with his lyrics, more then I’m sure I’ve grasped, but it’s a great album to digest and another one that seems very well timed for 2016.
7. Goodness, The Hotelier – There’s a lot of personal tragedy, layered meaning and even transcendentalism behind these 13 tracks but for me it’s just a good rock album. The kind of album I could pull up on any day, cranked loud or just laying back.
8. Hurtling Through, Tiny Ruins & Hamish Kilgour – I’ve realized I tend to have one mood record each year that ends up on my list, an album that’s meaningful to me for the way it instills a particular feeling or has the ability to transport me to a certain space and time. Hurting Through is sparse and feels small in some way. At first glance it has a melancholy that might fool you – but listening more, letting it wash over me, I found a quiet and contended happiness. I doubt you’ll find Hurtling Through on any other “Best of” lists and I don’t know if it will work for others, but this is an album that transports me to the bitter-sweet feel of a quiet, shaded back porch in early summer, drifting in and out of sleep as the afternoon slips away.
9. Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic, The Gotobeds – Pitchfork slammed this album, which can sometimes indicate it’s actually really good. They did have a point about it not being anything terribly original, but I’m okay with that. There is a distinct argument that nothing in music (or art) is original anymore and often, the more original it is the less accessible (or enjoyable) it tends to be. With The Gotobeds, I’m more then happy to get a fresh hit of Pavement, Silkworm, and Television for 2016.
10. Revolutionaries, You Won’t – This is my second dark horse on the list. I questioned whether to include it. As with Hurtling Through, it’s probably not an album you’ll find on other lists and Josh Arnoudse’s voice is not going to win any beauty contests. But it’s the albums I went to most when I needed something upbeat in 2016 and I’ll stand by it’s witty, infectious folk-rock.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Lemonade, Beyonce – I’ve only listened to this album a handful of times. I can’t say it’s something I’m going to throw on when I’m hanging around the house. But I can’t deny that this is a great album. Beyonce has done lots of catchy pop tunes before, but this is a true album and it goes well beyond catchy – it is influential, meaningful, and sincere.
22, A Million, Bon Iver – I still don’t know exactly what to think of this album and that’s why it’s here in the Honorable Mentions category. Is it a beautiful, ambitious work filled with layers of mystery that pull you in? Or is it a muddled, self-important, pretentious self-masturbation? When I just let the music play without thinking about it, loosing myself in the soundscape, then I start to think this could be a great album… But the lyrics? And the numerology, and all the hokey symbols, and the antics of Justin Vernon’s showmanship with the media? That’s when I start to think this could be the result of an artist who no longer has anyone around him willing to call bullshit. Ironically, my favorite song from this album is actually a cover done by Gordi which strips away the extracurricular activity and finds the beautiful core within.
Blonde, Frank Ocean – I came to this one late because, despite the critical acclaim, I wasn’t really that into his last album and kind of expected the same for this one. But with Blonde, Ocean focuses his music a bit more, simplifies it just a bit, while still deftly mixing genres and producing a powerful orchestration. This is an album that I feel I struggle to fully appreciate but it’s one I enjoy coming back to.
Not More Music Crap? 