Best of 2016
Oh, 2016. What a conflicted year you are. This is the year that gave me, quite possibly, the two happiest moments of my life. Marrying my favorite person on a cliff-side villa in Ravello, Italy and having friends from around the world celebrating with us for days. And having one of my favorite musicians ever play the wedding on top of that! And then a week before that, a lifetime of disappointment as a Cleveland sports fan ended spectacularly as some of my oldest friends - as well as some friends we just met that night - and I celebrated something we never thought would happen in a basement sports bar in the middle of Rome.
And there was more in between those moments: I paddled the length of the Everglades in total isolation - waking up some mornings with a pod of dolphins just off our tent. We saw great friends get married in amazing locations. And capped the year off with New Year's Eve fireworks over the Hermitage. But this was the year karma decided to balance the highest highs with the lowest lows. I can't think of another year with such communal loss. Particularly in music. David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Phife Dawg, Sharon Jones. Not just good musicians. Luminaries that transcended music and were cultural icons. As if that weren't enough, 2016 was the year that we lost respect for multi-nationalism and democratic institutions and embraced isolationism, racism, and ignorance. As we enter 2017, we fear for the resilience of our democracy and our relationships with other countries, we fear for the future of our planet, and we fear for our ability to respect people who don't look like us, love like us, our think like us.
And that conflict comes through in my best of list this year. On the one hand, my favorite song of the year (and, actually, one of my favorite songs ever) was an unremittingly happy, buoyant piece of pop. Walter Martin's Down By the Singing Sea is not complicated. A one man melody singing about the joys of lying on the beach. Simple, sweet, perfect. "Fish are jumping, I guess they're huntin'. Cause every now and then, they catch a fly or something." And the video is perfect as well. Nerdy Russian swing kids dancing their heart out is completely unrelated to the song but somehow a perfect match.
On the other hand, though, another of my favorite songs of the year is, perhaps, one of the most unsettling songs I have ever heard. Tanya Tagaq is a Canadian Inuit trained in the throat singing techniques of her ancestors. She's invented new ways of singing on top of that and applied it to modern forms of music (I guess you could call it indie rock). Whatever it is, it is deeply unsettling. Her cover of Nirvana's Rape Me will make you sleep with the lights on. Usually, I prefer my music to evoke either happiness or rage. But in 2016 it seems appropriate to have a song that evokes such a feeling of unease.
More than anything else, though, my best of list this year resonates with the loss of our musical touchstones. My musical idols. And while we lost them, how fortunate we were to have one last musical spin from most. And not just one last record, but statement records. Bowie's Blackstar might actually be my favorite of his since The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. And that's saying a LOT. A Tribe Called Quest featured Phife so often on We Got It From Here, you might almost think it's a solo album. While Leonard Cohen didn't make the final 10, You Want It Darker with it's refrain "Hineni, hineni. I'm ready my Lord" is an amazing work of writing your own funereal dirge. And, if you haven't checked it out already, you should read the last note he wrote his muse Marianne. It makes me cry every time. I wish I could be that effortlessly lyrical just once in my life. But beyond Bowie and Tribe, this year's list features Sharon Jones long-time label mate, Charles Bradley, and an album dug up in a Minneapolis record store that is a musical descendant of Prince while I was in Minneapolis the weekend of Prince's passing. So this year's list is an homage to them as much as it is an actual accounting of the records that I thought were best this year. So here it is:
Really great songs/albums that didn't make the cut
Amid all the albums of long lost bands that I love, I have to make a special mention of Dinosaur Jr. They're always going to have a soft spot in my heart and it was nice to have a new album from them even if it was of the good-not-great sort. Same goes for Icelandic wunderkind, Sin Fang, who has featured on this list more than once and still puts out unbelievably textured, layered, dreamy songs like Candyland. It's just that this year's album has some great songs in it but isn't all that consistent. And some great individual songs that I loved from Cloud Cult and Daughter that came off pretty ordinary albums. Really loved most of Chance the Rapper's album but it annoys me that he makes it so hard to get a hard copy of his stuff. And even though they were reviewed really well, I really haven't given a fair shake to Beyonce or Solange's albums. I suspect I'm being a bit of a music snob. Finally, two last songs deserve a special mention. Like most Radiohead albums, Moon Shaped Pool is really, really good. On the balance of their career, they have an absolutely amazing repertoire. It's just that I've never loved any of their albums (except for The Bends, of course). That being said, they finally put one of my absolute favorite songs of theirs on this album. Thom Yorke on True Love Waits is absolutely swoon-worthy. And Angel Olsen just barely missed the cut this year by the slimmest of margins. But Shut Up Kiss Me sums up all of her attitude and songwriting skill beautifully.
10. Charles Bradley - Changes
And we get the best of
2016 started off as depressed as possible. Charles Bradley has always had
one of the most mournful howls around. He's not known as the
"Screaming Eagle of Soul" for nothing. After a couple of albums
together you now, you start to get a real sense of the chemistry between
Bradley and his backing band (The Extraordinaires). Listen to a song like Changes and you will feel the anguish
of someone going through a painful break-up. While songs like Ain't It a Sin have more than just a passing resemblance
to the Godfather of soul.
9. Nazeem & Spencer Joles - The Album
I love finding albums
like this. I ended up in Minneapolis, as chance would have it, the
weekend after Prince passed away. I don't know that I've ever been part
of a city that has identified so closely with a hometown icon like that.
Buildings lit up in purple, Prince's old club running all-night dance
parties, it was sad and beautiful at the same time. As I soaked it in, I
made my way to the Fifth Element - the record store that is part of the
Rhymesayers collective, which you can really see as an outgrowth of the musical
movement Prince had started in Minneapolis. Anyways, browsing through the
racks there, I came across this album that I picked up solely because they shot
the cover outside of The Best Steakhouse. I don't know how many of you
have ever been to the Best Steakhouse, but let me just say that the name is a
little misleading. But it's achieved something of a cult status among me
and my friends. I mean - how often can you get a $10 steak? But
that fascination with the Best Steakhouse led to discovering this gem.
Nazeem has been on the underground hip hop scene in Minneapolis for a
couple years now and this album collects a lot of his best work onto one album.
It's got the sound and production you expect from the "Minneapolis
sound", but Nazeem's delivery is reminiscent of Snoop - slow, chilled-out
but with a serious edge. Also like Snoop, he's got more than one song
dedicated to the bud - nothing more obvious than Smoke Daht.
8. Massive Attack - Ritual Spirit plus The
Spoils
I was going to leave
this off the list and just list it in the notable songs up above, but then I
took another listen to all of it....and, yeah, it's got to be on here. I
know it's not a full album, but I think that maybe one EP combined with another
single - especially when you haven't put anything out in a long time - still
counts. 5 songs in total and they're all so, so beautiful. The
production values of these guys combined with some of my favorite voices.
Roots Manuva on Dead Editors, Azekel on Ritual Spirit, Tricky on Take It There, and Hope Sandoval on The Spoils. Oh, Hope Sandoval - #swoon.
Memories of Mazzy Star swirling in my head. This album belongs up
here just for bringing her back.
7. The Avalanches - Wildflower
This was one of those
"oh yeah, I loved those guys!" moments. I'd totally forgotten
about The Avalanches. That's what happens when you don't put out any
music for over a decade. When I heard this DJ collective was going to put
out another album, I dug up my old copy of Frontier Psychiatrist and couldn't wait for this album to drop. Did. Not.
Disappoint. This is a dense album. 21 tracks in total. The
first 7 or 8 are spectacular and then it goes into a bit of a lull, before
closing with maybe my favorite track of them all: Saturday Night Inside Out. Really great diversity on the front half
of the album: the Jackson 5-ishness of Because I'm Me, the disco-ness of Subways, or the just general weirdness of Frankie Sinatra. Creative, experimental, brilliant.
6. Mitski - Puberty 2
The spiritual cousin to
Torres's Sprinter, which made my list last year. Early 20-something female
trying to make sense of life and relationships. Occasionally, hoping that
a relationship will make everything feel better and then being sorely
disappointed. Strange Hellos off of Torres's album had last year's best silent-to-rage moment
of the year. Mitski totally raises the ante this year with Your Best American Girl. Oh man, that is a song to turn up to 20 in the car.
Sweetly chirpy for the first minute or so and then.......rage. This
is such a rocking album.
5. Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam - I Had
a Dream That You Were Mine
This is basically a
Walkmen album. Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend comes over to
moonlight as an erstwhile Walkmen member. The two together are really
solid, but this sounds pretty much like a Walkmen album. Not quite up to
par with You and Me, which is an all-timer in my book. But this is a good Walkmen album,
which is always going to mean that it makes this list. Hamilton
Leithauser just has the best rock and roll voice ever. And you get the
gamut on this album, from his classic howl on 1,000 Times to the slow, building burn of In a Blackout.
4. Frank Ocean - Blond
Yeah, it's this good.
I'm not a huge fan of all of the voice modulation stuff but he does
really put it to good use so I can't complain too much. What really sold
me on this album was Stereogum's Best Songs of the Year list. I generally trust Stereogum, but they
also have a lot of individual reviewer's who I do really like (Chris DeVille,
Gabriela Claymore, etc.). And what struck me about Blond (apart from the
blatant misspelling) is how many critics listed different songs off of the album is being one of the
best of the year. Sure sign of a winner. Take your pick: the slow,
almost indie rock groove of White Ferrari, the funk of Nikes, or the amazing cameo from Andre 3000 on Solo. My one complaint
is that he never really gets very political - particularly in the era of Black
Lives Matter and someone supported by white supremacists becoming President
Elect. Outside of Nikes ("RIP, Trayvon....") there's just not that much
here. It's a much more introspective record, which is fine - it just
feels like a missed opportunity. Even without that, though, this is a
killer record. For a real experience, check out the huge magazine he
created to accompany the album.
3. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial
This record reminds me
so much of the best days of Sunset Rubdown. I still love the odd Spencer Krug album that comes by, but
those early Sunset Rubdown albums all featured 8 minute long songs that covered
a whole narrative arc, changed structure in the middle, and were completely radio unfriendly. That is absolutely the
vibe that Will Toledo puts out on this Car Seat Headrest album. This
album was so hyped up when it came out that I disregarded it at first.
There's a fair amount of pretentiousness on some of the early songs but,
as I listened to more and more of this album, it wasn't hard to forgive that.
While Sunset Rubdown songs often feel like multiple songs, this album
actually has one song that is two different songs merged into one. I'm
sure somebody can clue me into the sense behind Drunk Drivers/Killer
Whales. I'm not going to
pretend to understand it, but I love it. And you absolutely have to work
your way through The Ballad of the Costa Concordia. Maybe that actually is my favorite song
of the year. There's about 40 musical concepts crammed into that epic.
If you have the time, definitely watch the entire performance here, but if you can only spare 10 minutes go to the 58 minute mark
and watch their performance of The Costa Concordia. So good.
2. A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From
Here...Thank You 4 Your Service
I waited a long time for
that new album from The Avalanches, waited even longer for this one. And
with Phife falling ill, the urgency to wrap this album was even greater.
Phife's fingerprints are all over this as he seems to be featured a lot,
but you still get the best of all 3 Tribe MC's right out of the gate on The Space Program. Unrelentingly political and social, I hope we start to
hear more of this. We The People is an absolute wrecking
ball. Non-stop about the plight of the poor in the face of gentrification
and minorities in particular. They save us a bit every now and again with
the slightest touch of humor informing us that "When we get hungry we eat
the same fucking food....the ramen noodle" on We The People and
dropping a Pass the Dutchie sample on Dis Generation. It's even nice to have Busta
Rhymes back in his element.
1. David Bowie - Blackstar
Number one for me since
January and nothing came close. What a strange and wonderful career and
life David Bowie had. Will there ever be someone else who could carve out
a career like his? From glam rock in the 70's to new wave in the 80's to
a short stint with metal in the late 80's and on to electronic music in the
90's before having a late career return to rock and finally ending with a
jazz-inflected rock masterpiece. Who will ever do that again? The
great cipher even encoded a ton of mysteries into the cover art on the vinyl
jacket. The disembodied stars at the bottom of the album are rumored to
be some sort of code, it was discovered that shining a light on the central
black star reveals a field of stars, and the record producer has stated that
there are a lot more secrets that haven't even been discovered. Bowie's
last statement was a clear goodbye ("Look up here, I'm in heaven.
I've got scars that can't be seen.") and he decided to make the
record he always wanted while being as enigmatic as ever. It's a
challenging record. It's not the sort of thing that you're going to do
housework too. You've got to give it multiple listens. Every song
is a statement, every line means something and often has a double meaning.
Jump in with the two most accessible songs: Blackstar and Lazarus. But make sure you work your way all the way
through it.
