2017 Lists: Top 10 Albums of the Year
In June, I bemoaned the state of the year in music while listing my top five albums of the year so far. Things have picked up with only two of those first five remaining in my top ten! Compared to 2016 this year still pales slightly but I’m excited to share some of the best albums I heard this year! Get into it.
#10 — EMA — Exile in the Outer Ring
EMA does not seem to have much peace in her life. Exile in the Outer Ring is mostly made of intense songs full of heavy conflict. Seriously, all you need to know about the tone of this album can be summed up in one song title: “33 Nihilistic and Female.”
The album opens with this doozie being sung over hazy reverbed shoegaze:
For seven years I let you waste me before I could finally face it
Seven years of isolation
Seven Years
“Breathalyzer” ramps things up immediately with a long, dangerous, slow burn of a track full of industrial growls and hums. Just listen as her voice gains more and more rage and begins to fracture right up until the sudden hymnic release at the end. But the peaceful moment quickly dissipates as the highly repetitive and effective “I Wanna Destroy” starts its pulsing crescendo. The peaceful moments feel more escapist than transcendent, like their the result of substance abuse rather than any sort of self-care. But this adds a lot of character to the songs and keeps the tension high, even in the quieter moments.
EMA’s voice is the star here, but the atmospheric production suits it perfectly. “Blood and Chalk” with it’s simple chord progression, vulnerable vocals, thundering percussion, and screaming walls of guitar noise has an almost worshipful/spiritual aspect to it, and was my initial hook into this album. Other stand outs include “Aryan Nation” and “Down and Out” which both repurpose 90s alternative/grunge for modern times.
This record is not for everyone, but I’ve found myself coming back to it over and over. It’s somehow compelling and addicting. I’m excited to see where she goes next!
#9 — Mount Eerie — A Crow Looked at Me
Out of my top ten albums this year, A Crow Looked At Me is the least listened to. It’s too painful and real to really want to listen to more than once in a row, and it takes an emotional toll. But it’s exquisite. These songs are written in the wake of singer Phil Elverum losing his wife suddenly to very aggressive cancer.
This record is full of extremely specific details, broken thoughts too painful to finish expressing, regrets, and a wounded resolve to continue being a good parent in spite of the loss and pain. Out of all these painful recollections, the second verse on album opener “Real Death” continues to be the one that haunts me. Here’s part of it:
A week after you died a package with your name on it came
And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret
And, collapsed there on the front steps, I wailed
A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now
You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you
While this is a record of deep grief, there’s a real sweetness to how Phil conveys his last moments with his wife, or how his daughter pulls him out of it momentarily.
This is a record which deserves to be listened to intently. But don’t dwell here; soak in its pain, and then move forward in through life in gratitude.
#8 — JAY-Z — 4:44
After the maximalist, self-indulgent, and boring “victory lap” Magna Carta/Holy Grail, I had zero expectations for a new JAY-Z record. And boy was I pleasantly surprised. As far as I’m concerned, this is Hov’s best record since 2001’s The Blueprint (with the exception maybe of Watch the Throne).
Why? 4:44 thrives with its no-bullshit production, great flows, and — for the first time in a long time — some acknowledgement that Jay knows he’s human. This maturity comes through in the themes of self-improvement as he tries to recover from the very public revelations that he cheated on Beyoncé. Suddenly with the threat of losing what is actually important to him (his family) Jay looks in the mirror and reflects on the pain he caused, the man he wants to be, and the legacy he wants to leave behind. And all of this is accomplished in an incredibly tight 36 minutes — his shortest record by over 18 minutes.
#7— Kesha — Rainbow
Haters are gonna give me shit for this one, but damn this record got to me. On her first record after her extended legal battle with her former producer Dr. Luke (which was about sexual assault allegations as well as creative control over her music) Kesha came out swinging with a much more mature and diverse record than she’s ever made. There’s indie sing-alongs, raucous rockers, country tunes, and giant piano ballads.
“Bastards” has a “Hey Jude” style outro. “Let ’Em Talk” (featuring the Eagles of Death Metal), with it’s Joan Jett style riffage and stadium-worthy chorus, was one of the few songs this year that I actually would listen to up to three times in a row. “Woman” (with members of the Dap-Kings) is a bad ass soul song. “Praying” has probably the best pop vocal performance of the year (Seriously. This girl has pipes!) “Old Flames” is a full-on country song with Dolly Parton that sounds great, and “Godzilla” is an adorable love song.
It’s not perfect, there’s some medium weight filler, and the extended spoken-word outro is pretty corny (I skipped it after the first listen). But this record just made me happy. It was diverse enough and produced well enough that it didn’t get old nearly as fast as other pop records often do.
So. Ya. Maybe in a year or two I won’t ever listen to this again, but for 2017, I got a lot of pleasure out of Rainbow. Balancing swagger and vulnerability really did it for me. And I couldn’t pretend it didn’t earn a spot in my top ten.
#6 — TORRES — Three Futures
I discovered TORRES on her excellent 2015 record Sprinter. It was dark, sparse, and absolutely electrically charged with tension and angst. Her voice oozes with the ghosts she’s trying to exorcize. This year’s Three Futures marks a shift in her production style. Raw walls of guitar noise are replaced with synth pads and a raw drum kit is replaced with sonic textured samples. It’s almost like a paired down St. Vincent album in places. This has two effects. It means that when TORRES does unleash a guitar riff it pops out like crazy. I love it. However, it seems to have obscured her voice slightly as well. Which is a shame, because her voice is really the star of the show. Seriously, on many of these songs she manages to be vulnerable and ferocious at the same time.
It took me a while to peel the layers back and find the visceral and painful emotional core to these songs — as opposed to Sprinter where her voice was captivating and unavoidable. Now that I’ve adjusted my ears to Three Futures’ approach to songwriting, these songs are powerful in their own right. “Skim” is haunting, and “Righteous Woman” has the slightly upsetting but amazing line “I am not a righteous woman/I’m more of an ass man.” She definitely seems to be playing a character in some of these songs (see the “Three Futures” video) which is slightly disorienting. I think “Bad Baby Pie” might be my favourite track on the record with its strange syncopated verse and soaring chorus.
I may not like this record quite as much as Sprinter (yet?) but I’m excited to see this album as a stepping stone to something much more ambitious — and it’s still one of the best albums of the year.
#5 — Jens Lekman — Life Will See You Now
This record came out of nowhere for me. One casual suggestion on Facebook caused me to add it to my collection but I never bothered to listen to it until it came up on shuffle and blew my mind with it’s highly detailed narrative style, bright production, and religious themes. It’s almost like a cross between Belle & Sebastian, The Mountain Goats, and Wham!
“To Know Your Mission” describes a spiritual crisis a Mormon has after hearing of the death of Princess Diana. The way the song pushes and pulls the tempo and mood so deftly makes the song seem inevitable, but it’s got a pretty complex structure. Then there’s the twee disco of “Evening Prayer” with its upbeat groove and floating melody contrasting greatly with the lyrics about a tumour and an acquaintance struggling to know how involved he should be in trying to help.
And then there’s the full on Caribbean steel-drum mambo of “What’s That Perfume That You Wear?” which again hides deep personal struggles (“At least it was real/if it could hurt like that”) under the shiny production. I just realized that it kind of reminds me of Paul Simon’s Graceland in places, especially “Wedding in Finistère.”
The whole record is full of these wonderful juxtapositions. Honest, detailed, personal conflict, interwoven with bright, clean, almost festive production. It’s a sleeper but a winner.
#4 — Julien Baker — Turn Out the Lights
Yes. This is the third, female fronted indie singer with interesting vocals in this list. Apparently “intense women songwriters” have replaced “metal” as a majority top albums genre for me.
Julien Baker is the best of the lot this year. She has a pure voice that she uses with much restraint over elegantly simple melodies and songs. The simplicity of the songs really allows the emotion of her voice to come through. The first time I heard “Happy to Be Here” I was hooked. Hearing this dissatisfaction sung over a simple reverbed guitar just captivated me.
If I could do what I want
I would become an electrician
I’d climb inside my ears
And I would rearrange the wires in my brain
The metaphor builds from here until the chorus when her voice finally jumps to a higher register and just blasts through everything with “I heard there’s a fix/ for everything/then why, then why…/then why not me?!”
Every song has a version of this simple poetry of longing. “Everything to Help You Sleep” opens with this: “What is it like to be empty?/Full of only echoes/And my body caving in/A cathedral of arching ribs/Heaving out their broken hymns.” It’s beautiful and sincere and vulnerable.
With all this heavy melancholy it’s a massive relief when there’s a turn in “Hurt Less” where she goes from complete apathy and disassociation from life to finding a new love which makes her hurt less and makes life almost exciting again. It’s also got the most lively instrumental accompaniment on the record.
These songs just shot daggers at my heart and I love them. And so far the people I’ve shared them with have resonated with them as well. Really lovely stuff.
#3 — King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard — Flying Microtonal Banana
I discovered King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (the best band name to say out loud) on last year’s excellent psych prog monster Nonagon Infinity. This year the band have released FOUR records (they have a week to release their hinted at fifth record of 2017). Two are great, one is an interesting and exciting mess, and one is just ok. Flying Microtonal Banana is the first and best of this year’s offerings.
The album opens with the monster boogie jam that is “Rattlesnake,” a relentless 7+ minutes of forward momentum that can’t be stopped. It’s a fairly safe and exciting introduction to one of the album’s conceits; it’s recorded using quarter tone tunings. What’s that? Normally music is written with 12 tones which are spaced harmonically rather than mathmatically. The human ear likes this. KGatLW however used 24 mathematically equidistant tones to make this album. That means that everything sounds just a little off the whole time (see the solo at about 5:30 on “Rattlesnake”), and yet is perfectly mathematically sound. It’s nerdy and fun.
“Melting” transitions from a groovy percussion bash into a asymmetrical dance that feels like it borrows aspects of world music and “Sleep Drifter” has a droning raga feel. Meanwhile “Anoxia” has a classic heavy metal style riff— albeit warped into the strange quarter tone mode — and vocals somewhat reminiscent of T. Rex. Most of the album switches from one driving groove to the next and it really feels like a unified piece (tho not as much as the theoretically infinite loop of Nonagon) right until the end. On the closing title track these Aussie experimenters go full on eastern world music with guitars made to sound like a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. But even with the this doesn’t feel out of place as much as another transition into new territory.
I find the whole thing quite invigorating, fresh, and I’m glad that King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard continue to push themselves into new exciting territories.
#2 — Kendrick Lamar — DAMN. and “The Heart IV”
Kendrick Lamar’s fourth studio album, Damn., is my 3rd favourite of his records, and it’s still better than (almost) everything released this year. On it he steps away from his more cinematic narrative approach and kind of just released a bunch of great songs with some loose thematic ties.
On Damn. he’s once again wrestling with his own soul (although it’s more abstracted than on TPAB) and finding his responsibility. One of the themes of the record is definitely spiritual isolation as he mentions on more than one song that, “Nobody prays for me.” There’s also some humorous moments of trying to gain a more universal perspective (“What happens on Earth stays on Earth!”)
“DNA.” — an absolutely crushing and aggressive banger — deals with legacy and what control we have over ourselves based on how we were born and raised. “YAH.” wrestles with faith and God, and has an uncharacteristically lazy sounding flow. “ELEMENT” has an electric vocal performance over a fairly sparse beat, and a catchy hook. He’s exploring his own tendency towards violence. Oh, and there’s a super weird collaboration with oldschool stadium rockers U2 on “XXX.” that actually works and has one of the most insane beat switches on the record. Oh and there’s a startling moment where he switches suddenly from talking about revenge and violence to lecturing children about gun violence. He’s very aware of the irony and hypocrisy.
Then there’s “HUMBLE.” the banger of the year. Just ferocious. (It should also be noted that DAMN. was accompanied by some of the best looking music videos of the year.)
I included Kendrick’s stand alone single “The Heart, Part VI” in this list because it’s one of the best singles of the year and was released in anticipation/as an announcement of DAMN. It bridges the gap between TPAB and DAMN. well but also set me up for some disappointment as I wanted more of the style of “The Heart, Part VI” on the following record…and didn’t really get it. The record is extremely solid, and I understand why Kendrick would step back from the intense thematic writing like he did. But I miss it. I get that every artist needs some breathing room to shift and grow so I’m fine with a great record instead of a mind blowing one. Can’t wait for what’s next.
#1 — Alex Cameron — Forced Witness
On Forced Witness, Alex Cameron satirizes the darkest parts of the male ego in the internet age. It’s loaded with 80’s synths, slick production, catchy tunes, and uncomfortable lyrics, and it’s incredibly fresh and excited.
There’s not much holding back on this record. Opener “Candy May” with it’s synth bass thump goes quickly from overconfident bragging (“She has seen me naked/ she knows I’m packing heat”) to sober acknowledgement of his personal flaws (“So I live with a deep regret/ Of all I do on the internet”). Then there’s “Runnin’ Out of Luck” the cinematic love song of two misfits trying to make it against all odds. It feels like an indie movie in four minutes and it’s one of my favourite songs on the album with it’s driving keyboard, and that totally addictive chorus (and great saxophone wailing in the background.)
I’m a man on a mission, you’re a stripper out of luck
And we’re good in the back seat but we’re better up front
And there’s blood on my knuckles ’cause there’s money in the trunk
Keep running out of luck, keep running out of luck
“Stranger’s Kiss” a duet with indie darling Angel Olsen feels like it could almost be a ballad on a Meat Loaf record. It has one of the funniest/saddest lines on the record (“it feels like I could/Just peel the gym pants off a single mother”) and also has a few strange Waits-ian characters hanging around as well.
Another standout is the hilarious “True Lies” which talks about the shame of hooking up with “these women online” behind his “little darling”s back. It’s a love affair with a woman online who sends him pictures of her “beautiful eyes.” He later admits to sending her money and then in a moment of real honesty admits that it could just be a guy from Nigerian guy taking his money and sending him “beautiful lies.” At that point the background vocals on the chorus change from “beautiful eyes” to “Nigerian guy” and it’s pretty hilarious, especially considering the sincerity of the vocal delivery.
The final track “Politics of Love” has another of my favourite lines: “Love taught me how to walk/It taught me how to talk/But it never taught me how to vote.”
I think some people will listen to this album and see the pure embodiment of toxic masculinity. But I see it as a lampooning of that same problem. It’s wonderfully honest, thrillingly bold, and yet extremely self aware. It doesn’t shy away from the loneliness or lack of fulfillment that anonymous digital relationship provide, and yet there’s a sexy swagger to it all. I think it’s rare to capture both at the same time. Also, at the end of the music video for “Politics of Love” (which is essentially the album credits with a cinematic backdrop) there’s a special thanks section which ends with the line, “And [thanks to] all the strong women who keep making their way into our lives and showing us what it means to be real men.” To me that solidified the notion that all the borderline misogynistic and toxic attitudes on the record are parodies —although I never had much doubt in the first place.
All of this just put it over the top for me. It’s brilliantly catchy and produced (I didn’t even mention the epic saxophone solos!) and is both funny and heartwrenching. It’s sideways honesty won me over from the first and I’ve just kept enjoying it more and more as it goes. Get some!
Thanks for reading fellow humans! What were some of your favourite releases in 2017? Let me know in the comments below!
