Top Ten 2017 - Year in Review

1. Lorde – Melodrama

I didn’t see this one coming. Sure, I heard her debut because it was everywhere and I kinda liked it but before Melodrama I wouldn’t have called myself a fan. With this piece of pop perfection that has certainly changed. Intimate yet playful, and uniquely funny, it hits its marks from front to back.

2. Leif Vollebekk – Twin Solitude

I read that Leif made this album as one that he would like to listen to himself. Well get me this guy’s record collection because his ear for stripped back folk is spot on. Not to mention that beautiful and sometimes delicate voice delivering lyrics to the heart via the ears.

3. War On Drugs – A Deeper Understanding

The production value on this record is worth a million bitcoins. Although the composition must have been pored over for ages it doesn’t feel like it, it just plays exactly the way it should. I don’t know anything about composing, playing, singing or producing music but I like to think that I know what it sounds like when masters of these arts are at work.

4. Future Islands – The Far Field

Yes, I’m now fully on board with the band that everyone should have known tens of records ago. Discussing their discography is not my objective here though, it is to say that this is the album that caught my ear and compelled me to spin it over and over again.

5. St.Vincent – MASSEDUCATION

Another artist that I’ve known and respected only from the second deck until this album. There’s the guitar work that she’s made her name on but there’s also evocative lyrics and varied songwriting that is all top quality. MASSEDUCTION brings me down to the front row.

6. Idles - Brutalism

Whether their swagger is legitimate or for show(s) is irrelevant as the music they put down on tape roars (and that is not a knock on their incendiary live gigs). It rocks those earworms right into your skull. Extra points for the current, cutting, politically-forward lyrics that give this record another imperial tonne of weight.

7. Run The Jewels – RTJ3

El-P and Killer Mike have each been at it a long time and now on their third album collectively they may have hit their sweet spot. El’s beats are as razor sharp as ever while the lyrics hold their edge too, even during those times when it feels like you’re eavesdropping on a couple of bros ribbing each other.

8. Weaves – Wide Open

Weaves are making some of the most interesting music anywhere these days. Yet it’s not completely out there, "WTF-is-that?" kinda music; it’s immediate and relatable, truly engrossing. I can’t even form the sentences to describe it, you’d be much better served listening to it yourself.

9. Japandroids – Nearer to the Wild Heart of Life

Sure, I may have a soft spot for these two but I do think this album hit it right. They’ve evolved their game and if it has a few more “ballads” and the odd sentimental lyric, as opposed to reckless abandon and nostalgia, this comes as a sign of maturity. Japandroids are yearning less for younger us and appreciating the now, and it still resonates.

10. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

I could not get the hype. Each time I put on M.A.A.D City or Pimp a Butterfly it would get turned off before long without leaving much of an impression on me at all. Then DAMN. dropped and all things changed. Die-hards may hear this as a turn to the mainstream and, if so, it has worked because it converted this non-believer.

11. Broken Social Scene – Hug Of Thunder

BSS have their sound and they are masters of it. Polished, bombastic tracks that soar with male/female vocalists and ratcheted up brass. It works, it’s good - very, very good - and just because this album follows the sound does not make it derivative or repetitive. The addition of Ariel on vocals helps to breathe a fresh voice here too. I’d be remiss not to shoehorn it in here, especially with that closing song. 

Long-List Considerations

Lana Del Rey – Lust For Life

LCD Soundsystem – American Dream

Wolf Parade – Cry, Cry, Cry

Los Campesinos – Sick Scenes

The National – Sleep Well Beast

Sylvan Esso – What Now

Cloud Nothings – Life Without Sound

Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now

Beck - Colours

Author’s Address

In the year of the #metoo movement many horrifying actions have come to light, where people of a privileged position manipulated that power, and it has been sickening to read. There are essays to be written on the merits of art versus artist but this will not be one. However, I will take this opportunity to add another voice as a supporter of those who were taken advantage of and to consciously choose not to glorify the perpetrators nor their work. 

M.I.A - Danforth (July 18/13)

A lot of swagger comes in this little package as M.I.A. celebrated her birthday at the Danforth Music Hall with us. The stage was full, top to bottom, with large, intricate wheels that were a cross between a snowflake and a doily, until MIA bounded onto the stage and they lit in all sorts of strobe patterns to invigorate the set. This didn't leave much room for equipment besides a partial drum kit and a small sampler table so it was primarily a singalong for the leading lady, dropping lyrics onto her own tracks which at times was lacking but for the most part was fine. Throughout the night these tunes proved too quiet for the dance party she was attempting to create as she pleaded for her songs to be cranked further. It didn't seem to bother the intensely sweaty crowd though who took their cues from the dance pack hype crew who broke it down all over the stage. She opened with a forthcoming song, closed with a recent one and dabbled throughout her catalogue in between - not always finishing the track before jumping into the next. Tunes from her gloriously received debut such as encore-included Galang, and its follow-up, including Bamboo Banga were greeted with enthusiasm though even the recent banger Meds and Feds got people grooving despite the heat wave. In under an hour she had exhausted herself to the point of needing a break - probably a bad decision to put that sweater back on overtop of your gold outfit. However after a number of minutes in the dark, including an attempt at a birthday serenade, MIA and her crew returned to lay it down - asking for tequila and faking a sit-down session of puff-puff-pass. You knew Paper Planes would go off so it was especially exciting when at its conclusion she announced they had one more trick in their bag and dropped the most excellent song from her recent repertoire, Bad Girls. People worked up an absolute shine before pushing into the only slightly less oppressive air of the outdoors.

The DJ was spinning in the hall and kept it up as Le1f arrived on the scene. At least I assume it was Le1f judging by the silhouette of a man in a maid of the mist poncho through the blue fog as it was very dark. With hints of contemporaries like Childish Gambino he whipped through a sometimes repetitive set, going back and forth with the DJ from time to time. Nearing the end he broke out some more outlandish dance moves, called out people of all sexual orientations and dropped a couple of his stronger tracks to finish well.