My usual blind spots persist, although they are shrinking: metal has no presence on this list and occupied a pretty narrow band of my total listening habits in 2016, and for such a rich year in hip-hop releases, my listening probably did not give the genre what it deserved. But it is what it is, and what this is is my favorite albums and songs from the year. Enjoy!
[Note: I started weekly reviews this year, so in the interest of not being redundant, if I had reviewed one of these albums this year, I've simply linked to the review page rather than create a new blurb.]
Favorite Albums:
We lost so many artists in 2016 that it's frightening to even begin to count them, but losing Bowie really, really stung, all the more so because Bowie's music felt more alive than it had in a decade at least. Blackstar ranks among the late legend's masterpieces, and what—in that blissful weekend that separated the release of this album from the man's death—initially seemed to be one of Bowie's strangest works soon snapped into focus as one of his most openly personal. Scratch that: not just one of his most personal—one of the most personal albums of all time. "You know I'll be free, just like that bluebird," he sings. "Ain't that just like me?" Exactly like David Bowie: brilliant.
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
[Read original review here]
Great 2016 Songs Not On These Albums:
Black Mountain: "Mothers of the Sun"—Black Mountain's 2016 album, IV, evokes Black Sabbath all over the place, but this opening track is probably the Sabbathiest, a grimy, relentless march of classic-rock-style heavy metal with a killer riff. It's apologetically nostalgic; it's also apologetically awesome.
Carly Rae Jepsen: "Cry"— "He never wants to strip down to his feelings/He never wants to kiss and close his eyes" is the sort of is-it-cheesy-or-well-observed line that has become Carly Rae's bread and butter. But the real charm here is the crystalline production, which gives the song the rich, faux-'80s sound that's become the 2010s bread and butter.
Car Seat Headrest: "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales"—The dirty secret of this "songs" section is that a lot of these picks are just chances for me to acknowledge albums that might have made the Top 10 if I had had a chance to spend more time with them. In the case of Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial, you've got a batch of literate, prickly-sweet indie rock songs of the variety that we might have heard from Pavement had they kept in the direction they started with on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Although to be precise, this pick, the standout "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales," sounds a lot more Weezer-y. Which is cool, too. Whatever the case, it's a fantastic song from an album I really need to hear more from.
Chance the Rapper (feat. T-Pain, Kirk Franklin, Eryn Allen Kane, Noname): "Finish Line"—Chance the Rapper spun gold out of the "gospel rap" sound that both he and Kanye touted this year. Of the two, Chance wins the gospel rap crown by a country mile, and this is exhibit A.
Brian Eno: "Fickle Sun (iii) I'm Set Free"—I'm not sure if this Velvet Underground cover makes sense outside of the context of its place as the closer for Brian Eno's solid album from early in 2016. But as a climax to a classically spacey Eno record, it's sublime.
INGA: "Volunteered Slavery"—I don't even know where I found this song. It was some random Bandcamp download. But it's a great little piece of modern jazzy something or other.
Kamaiyah: "I'm On"—A great rags-to-riches brag. Kamaiyah is one of several promising young voices to ascend the hip-hop ladder recently, and I'm all for that. She's a tremendously captivating MC.
Maps Need Reading: "Altar Ego"—Local Knoxville band spot here. Maps Need Reading released their debut album this year, and this 12-minute opus is far and away the best song on it. Recalling bits of Rush and Genesis and Pink Floyd while still establishing its own sonic identity, "Altar Ego" is fantastic justification of Maps Need Reading's central spot in Knoxville's prog scene.
M83: "Solitude"—M83's album Junk was dismissed as kitschy and hollow. I didn't spend enough time with it to know if that's true (and to be honest, I generally don't love M83 stuff to begin with), but "Solitude," with its majestic, cinematic sweep, is breathtaking.
Noname: "Yesterday"—Noname just makes me smile. There's a joint humility and verve to her delivery that makes her music irresistible to me, and no more so is this true than in the opening track to her excellent 2016 mixtape, Telefone. Not that Chance is going anywhere, but Noname is the perfect inheritor to his throne as the feel-good conscious rapper of his era. Look her up if you haven't already.
PJ Harvey: "The Wheel"—A furious, scorched-earth rocker from one of alt-rock's perennial earth-scorchers. Harvey's foray into international social consciousness was kind of hit-and-miss this year, but this song, focusing on a small, almost inconsequential scene of photos fading in sunlight, is a powerful bit of Kosovo metonymy.
Preoccupations: "Degraded"—The band formerly known as "Viet Cong" lost little in the voyage from one name to the next. "Degraded" delivers the same characteristically aggressive post-punk you've come to expect from the band's debut last year, this time zeroing in a bit more intently on Joy Division as an influence.
Savages: "Evil"—And speaking of aggressive post-punk, get a load of Savages.
Solange: "Cranes in the Sky"—This is another "want to spend more time with the album" pick. Those harmonies! That chorus! It's a beautiful song every bit the equal to (and maybe even surpassing) the music put out by that other Knowles woman this year.
Kanye West: "Saint Pablo"—Even by the scattered logic of contemporary Kanye releases, The Life of Pablo was an especially scattered album, but in the wreckage of what has turned out to be an unfortunately unfortunate 2016 for Ye, we can still pick out the jewels, and "Saint Pablo" is chief among them. In light of what the last few months of the year looked like for Kanye, "This generation's closest thing to Einstein/So don't worry about me, I'm fine" are a pair of lines that have taken on perhaps more meaning than the man himself ever intended, but if anything, West's music only becomes richer through the lens of the conflict between author and audience.
White Stag: "Mothouse"—More Knoxville pride. Of the two Knox prog bands represented here, White Stag is the clear visionary, infusing their 10-minute suites with ambient and black metal textures that place them on the vanguard of what's looking to be an exciting 2017 breakthrough.
Wilco: "We Aren't the World (Safety Girl)"—Modern-day Wilco is a band of two ambitions: the scrappy, noisy rock of 2015's Star Wars and the scrappy, finger-picking rock of 2016's Schmilco. Both versions feel intermittently tossed-off and brilliant, and I honestly prefer the noisier side of the band. But there's still lots to love about the quieter, more acoustic stylings, as evidenced by the sweet sarcasms of "We Aren't the World (Safety Girl)." "Let's pretend we're hundred-dollar bills, like so, and complain every day there's a spider in my soup," Tweedy sings, "Tired of my opinions like everybody else, is that so?" It's some of his best songwriting in recent years, and given how I don't at all agree with the meme of Wilco being in decline, that's saying something.
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