Here it is: my fashionably late list of favorite albums for 2017. I kept putting it off because I wanted to do write-ups for at least the top 20… but it’s already 20 days in to January and who am I kidding? So I only did write-ups for the Top 10. Well, technically for the Top 11, but you’ll see what I mean about that.

Warning: a huge wall of text and embedded music players are to follow.

Pre-ramble

As a year, 2017 was one of the best years of music in recent memory. It’s weird looking at this list because I feel like there is still so much missing. If you are a fan of music, you will undoubtedly find yourself asking “Where’s X?” and “Where’s Y?” There was just so much going across multiple genres. Hip-hop, electronic, and indie rock found fervent fans hyped up for so many albums that were released and actually met–if not exceeded–expectations. But I’m also so happy to see experimental and ambient genres have continued to find new fans as younger listeners have embraced and started participating in those forms, not letting them drift further away into obscurity.

The last couple years I had some contemplation regarding music consumption as a whole — how changes in how we’re listening to music (in more frequent, shorter listening sessions through music streaming) has driven a singles-dominant atmosphere. That’s continued, but many artists still hold onto the idea of an album as a conceptual piece. Cultural changes at a macro scale happen at a languid pace; it’s interesting to reflect year-by-year on the subtle differences from the year prior. I don’t have as much to contemplate here other than that it’s a realization of what I expected from years prior.

But I think it’s all worked out better than I expected. Looking ahead to the next few years, I have a suspicion that Generation Z will end up having some of the most varied, diverse music tastes of any generation. Most, if not all, of that is thanks to how widely accessible to how music has become.

Some Millennials like myself saw the fruition of music accessibility (specifically through piracy, although that drove the market to change) through the early ’00s to today. I took strong advantage of being able to consume large amounts of different music (including stuff I don’t think we would have ever bought, like that Merzbow box set, what the fuck). But many other Millennials only chose to download an album here or there, and many more ultimately listened to the radio as their primary source of finding new music.

Gen Z–having wide access to Spotify, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud– the ability to freely explore and discover music will drive them to be more discerning, more eccentric listeners. Stuff that they might be embarrassed to listen to in front of their friends or buy at the store, they can check out from the comfort of their phone. And these influences might result in a generation of musicians who genre-blending isn’t some niche element but a staple of their aesthetic choices.

But I’m getting way ahead of music. This post is about 2017, and not the future of music. If a generation can have a musical swan song, but I don’t think we are quite there yet. There’s still so much progress to be made, so many more journeys to go on and explore in sound and story. But this year was pretty awesome. It’s one that a few decades from now, we can all reflect on and say, “Yeah, damn. That was a hell of a year in music.”

These are my favorites. These are what I listened to most, what I appreciated most, what surprised me the most, what inspired me the most.

50. Mux Mool – Implied Lines

49. Björk – Utopia

48. The xx – I See You

47. Visible Cloaks – Reassemblage

46. Sylvan Esso – What Now

45. Location Services – In Passing

44. Earthen Sea – An Act of Love

43. Dolce – Av liv och grönska

42. Somehow – Hidden Memories

41. Milo – Who Told You To Think ??!!?!?!?!?!

40. Stormzy – Gang Signs & Prayer

39. Thurston Moore – Rock N Roll Consciousness

38. Justin Walter – Unseen Forces

37. Beach Fossils – Somersault

36. The Necks – Unfold

35. Jay Som – Everybody Works

34. Japanese Breakfast – Soft Sounds from Another Planet

33. Death Of Lovers – The Acrobat

32. Broken Social Scene – Hug Of Thunder

31. Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now

30. St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION

29. Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory

28. Four Tet – New Energy

27. Big Boi – BOOMIVERSE

26. Hater – You Tried

25. Fever Ray – Plunge

24. Pumarosa – The Witch

23. The National – Sleep Well Beast

22. Kedr Livanskiy – Ariadna

21. Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun

20. The Magnetic Fields – 50 Song Memoir

19. Charlotte Gainsbourg – Rest

18. Xiu Xiu – FORGET

17. Destroyer – ken

16. SZA – Ctrl

15. Wolf Parade – Cry Cry Cry

14. Tyler, The Creator – Flower Boy

13. Protomartyr – Relatives In Descent

12. Hannah Peel – Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia

11. Big K.R.I.T. – 4va Is A Mighty Long Time

10. Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins

A follow-up to Shields five years in the making, Painted Ruins doesn’t quite reach the pinnacle set by their last two incredible albums. But it comes damn close. I think its main issues that it occasionally finds itself twiddling its thumbs, especially on songs like “Mourning Sound” and “Four Cypresses” which on paper have everything you’d want in a Grizzly Bear song, but in the end tastes like a recipe followed exactly like the instructions without any pizazz. But the album recovers with “Three Rings,” putting forward one of the year’s best crescendos and climaxes. “Aquarian” is a woozy, swaying song that sways to the rhythm of its own tide. “Cut-Out” is a welcome entry to the band’s discography with its entrancing, marching drums that crash in at the 1:42 mark. “Neighbors” seems to pack the punch that was missing in the earlier half of the album, and it does so with more quient restraint, allowing frantically plucked acoustic guitars to be featured more prominently in the mix. Even when the band falters, it falters with grace and style. The band’s matured to the point of confidence and assuredness in its sound. They still have more to pictures to paint in this palette, but I’m not sure how much further they can take it.

9. Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels 3

This is the album that started my 2017. Releasing early on the tail end of 2016, it confused critics as to whether to consider it part of ‘16 or ‘17. For me, the official release date was always to be 2017, plus I needed time to reflect on the album. Well, I had a whole year to do it. I started the year thinking that it would be tough for anything to beat it, but little did I know that 2017 would be one of the best years of music in recent memory.

On RTJ3, continue their political and social lyrical mayhem. El-P’s beats are, as usual, on some next level shit that few can compare to. Call Ticketron comes out of left-field with some of the most amusing samples, including a take from Lyn Collins’ Think (About It) which has been used repeatedly in the genre endlessly, yet somehow he found a way to breathe new life into it against a dystopian backdrop. This is furthered by the robotic iterations of “Live from the Garden!” which further emphasizes the track’s strange yet addictive sound.

While the album struggles to find those standout bangers that RTJ2 was praised for, I find that the album has a strong consistency. It has some of the most nuanced lyrics on RTJ’s albums to date, proving that the duo have a lot more to say. Closing track A Report to the Shareholders / Kill Your Masters reminds me a lot of El-P’s solo work, perhaps due to its length and relentless and justified angst. Supposedly we will only get one more album of the project, which is disappointing. I haven’t become bored of their efforts so far. In an era primarily driven by big egos and solo careers, politically charged hip-hop duos seem a rarity. Without a doubt, this is the project we need to get through the next 3 years.

8. Future Islands – The Far Field

Although The Far Field doesn’t progress Future Islands’ catalog into a new direction, it does stand as one of their most consistent and compelling records to date. As a fan of Keyboardist Gerrit Welmers’ solo project, Moss of Aura, I find myself appreciating the of the distinctness of their synthesizers, which is not an easy thing to achieve with such a instrument so saturated in today’s indie as we approach nearly two decades of “post-punk revival.” The band also continues to work much thanks to Sam Herring’s passionate vocals. He stays away from some of the metal-influenced screaming that occasionally populated 2014’s Singles, which I had quite enjoyed but am willing to part with for now. I’m waiting for him to somehow bring over his rap alter ego, Hemlock Ernst, to the project, but I understand if they want to keep them separate from aesthetic choices. Clearly they still have more they want to explore with core sound that makes Future Islands without changing up much.

The album didn’t make a huge splash due to the fierce competition from countless other artists this year. But I keep coming back to it. “Ran” and “Cave” are two incredible singles, but “Time On Her Side” is one of my favorite songs of the year. The album starts incredibly strong, and while it narrowly misses hitting that quality for its duration, it never becomes boring or humdrum. The album’s penultimate song, Shadows, finds itself collaborating with Debbie Harry with a dark and sultry duet. There’s a lot to love here, and I think it deserves to shine along with all the other great albums released this year.

7. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.

Kendrick Lamar surprises everyone again. This time, he proves he can just put out 14 rap songs without (ostensibly) a heavy theme tying them all together. The album does have some inter-woven themes and call backs to prior tracks. But it’s a far cry from the thematic epic To Pimp A Butterfly and its poetry-binding structure. This perhaps gave Kendrick some creative breathing room for once, allowing him to explore his emotions and ideas with more free form.

The result was a wild success. Kendrick puts out some of his best songs to date that captures pop appeal without sacrificing his artistic integrity. DNA. and HUMBLE. struck me with immediacy, but several other tracks grew on me quite a lot over the year. These include LUST., ELEMENT, and LOVE.

The album’s Collector’s Edition simply runs the tracklist backward, which is sort of funny. But I think it proves a point that the track listing can be played with. Most of k-dot’s work is best listened to in order for the story, but here, shuffle works just fine. The album breathes in and out of different moods and ideas, yet they reverberate a collective consciousness. In this way, DAMN. is the closest we’ve gotten to a personal Kendrick Lamar album since Section 80. The production isn’t quite as compelling as his past couple records, but it does manage strong listenability. The collaboration with U2 on XXX. was surprising, but somehow it worked. It just seems like the guy can’t do much wrong. In the end, DAMN. continues a line of stellar records.

6. Iglooghost – Neō Wax Bloom

Holy crap. That was my first reaction to listening to this album.

Several listens later, that continued to be my reaction. This is one of the fastest, densest, most kaleidoscopic electronic music records since Aphex Twin’s Drukqs. Throwing around beats that find their stylistic root in ‘90s jungle and drum ‘n bass (especially in tempo), the album is a psychedelic collage of sound bounded together with a genius insanity. This album sounds like night driving through the neon streets of Tokyo at 200mph. Iglooghost attested in interviews that he would sometimes spend hours on just a few bars of music, and it shows. The fast tempos never leave detail behind as repeat listens expose so much to be discovered in hidden alleyways that zoom by. Sometimes I wish the it would slow down for me to smell the roses, but that’s just not the kind of album this is. This is a dedication to both a creative aesthetic and technical prowess that few electronic artists are able execute due to the absolutely painstaking amount of fine tuning required to get there.

5. Kelela – Take Me Apart

Over the last several years, R&B has been flourishing with innovation in a genre that’s long been ridiculed for sameness and saturation. But in that transition, I think some fans of the genre have lamented aspects that were lost. They’ve stepped back in nostalgia to ‘80s and ‘90s R&B with renewed fascination especially for Prince and Michael Jackson. This was a time period when R&B evolved further from its ‘50s blues-tilted origins by moving away from guitars and embracing synthesizers and drum machines. This would of course influence pop music as a whole during the period, and this sound would last through the ‘00s. The public would eventually tire of it, but its staying power has still remained as its found new ways to stay compelling.

Kelela’s Take Me Apart manages to push the envelope without losing sight of the soul and synthesizer inspirations that manifested in the genre during the ‘80s. The album is a sonic masterpiece. Layering is immaculately laid out in a mix that is clean and vibrant. It’s confidently meshes together dance and future beats with an R&B and soul foundation. It never settles for too long on a sound, always looking for a new avenue to explore like the spacey minimalism on Jupiter. Matching contemporaries like Frank Ocean, it stretches out song lengths to reach deeper moods. Nowhere is this more apparent than its incredible opener, Frontline. Through darker corners like the solemn strings of Turn To Dust, the album never fails to impress. And of course through all of this, Kelela’s vocals become the perfect focal point for its lush backdrop, managing to sing through both eccentric and pop beats with seamless transition.

4. Princess Nokia – 1992 Deluxe

A culmination of efforts over the last several years (which itself formed together her 2016 mixtape), 1992 Deluxe’s final result *could have* been a garbled mess. But here, each song seems to find off each others’ energy and inform a larger narrative. They work together to create a portrait of an artist that is passionate, eccentric, rebellious, and talented. Embracing ‘90s rap/R&B influences, it runs the gamut from the fighting spirit on “Kitana” to the internal social reflections of “Goth Kid.” While Princess Nokia has stood out as a feminist symbol, her subject matter is so much more varied than most of rap today. It has a paradoxical “don’t give a fuck” attitude that does give a fuck about a lot of topics. Not many artists can make important cultural and sociopolitical observations through a song about hair (on “Mine”), but Princess Nokia does it without a flinch. And when you think about it, it’s the perfect angle to tackle the subjects she’s rapping about.

Princess Nokia is doing more with the platform of rap than so many of her peers today. She’s outpaced many in a male-dominated genre. What stands out most and what makes this album worthy of respect is its character. There’s strength and pride on this album, but there’s also vulnerability, fear, empathy, and respect. How it achieves this is simple: candor. I think Princess Nokia says it best herself:

“Competition, I got none cause I made my own fucking lane
Rap shit, I’m so based man
I’ll say what the fuck I want
Middle fingers to a scheming hoe, I’m a superstar standing in the front.”

3. The Mountain Goats – Goths

Huge points for one of the most creative albums of the year. A concept album about capturing the deeper essence of goth culture without any goth music tropes? And hell, without guitars, which is one of The Mountain Goats’ most signature elements? How did John Darnielle even come up with this? And how did it even work?

It worked because John Darnielle is one of the most seasoned, practiced, and consistent singer songwriters of the last few decades. The guy has written a song about practically everything else, from professional wrestling to religion to benders to theft to love and all the things you’re “supposed” to sing about. So yeah, through that lens, of course Darnielle pulled this album off. No one else could have done it as well. It manages to take itself seriously without ever taking itself seriously. There is a measured balance of facetiousness and seriousness. The album is fun, thoughtful, and catchy.

The lyrics are of course front and center here. Quirks like “And outside it’s 92 degrees;
And KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees” bring a smile to my face. But the album is so much more than a series of references and nods to goth culture. It is a reflection on the youthful existentialism that filters through this subculture. It ponders the social components of the scene–the comings and goings of people within it, or people who are or aren’t committed to what it really means. But of course the album never really answers what it means, because if you have to ask, you just don’t get it, do you?

The album instead focuses on all of the other little things — the tiny pieces that make up the whole. Snippets like, “I feel like half my friends have moved to San Francisco.” If you ever found yourself embedded in a subculture like this, it’ll find a way to speak to you. But it’ll do so in a whisper that you’re not sure is cryptic or mundane. Or both. Either way, this is one of the best records Darnielle has put out in a while, and it’s a level of creativity and uniqueness heard seldom these days. Or hell, any days.

2. Slowdive – Slowdive

It surprises even myself that I put this album so close to “1.”

The “comeback album” has been a bit of a disappointment for many people regarding many artists. An artist that’s been gone for decades comes out of the darkness to record new material. Will they still have that spark? Will they do something new, or continue their old sound? These are questions that have been often been ultimately answered with, “Actually, I guess they’ll put out a piece of garbage.”

So when I heard Slowdive was coming out with a new album, I wasn’t too surprised. They’d announced some tour dates. Rachel Goswell was recording with members of Mogwai and Editors in the band “Minor Victories” (which was, in 2016, a minor victory). Shoegaze as a sound has come back to the forefront of alternative music fascinations. Many new artists who’ve picked up the torch left slowly burning in the early to mid-90s. It was the right time for them to come back, if they were ever going to do it.

Then it came… not with a bang, but with a reverb. The first single, “Star Roving,” didn’t particularly wow me. It had all the right parts, but something seemed missing. It just took me a few months to realize that the thing that was missing was the rest of the damn album.

As a whole, Slowdive’s self-titled album fits together in wonderful mesh of sound. The album’s opener, “Slomo,” is a perfectly-titled, perfectly-executed dream pop slowdive. It perhaps defines the band’s sound even more hypnotically than anything on their 1993 magnum opus, Souvlaki. The whirring rhythms are accented by angelic guitar notes that make me feel at ease when nothing else can. “Sugar for the Pill” is a slowcore jam that reminds me of “Dagger” (also from Souvlaki) but the placebo-induced anthem somehow manages to be both darker and lighter in its intoxicating caress.

As a whole, the album comes together with a finesse for the genre that few other bands have achieved. And lately, a lot of bands sure have tried. I was expecting to listen to this album and be disappointed that it couldn’t keep up with everything that’s happened in the space since they left it. But they not only picked up from where they left off, they improved on it. They brought their sound to higher sonic standards without ruining any of its innate appeal. Even the album’s minimal piano ballad closer, Falling Ashes, somehow captures the band’s appeal without any of their typical wall-of-sound, once again proving that the band doesn’t have to rely on guitar reverb as a crutch. The song’s 8 minutes flies by in a blur, which seems impossible since it’s a crescendo without much of a climax.

The album’s detours are striking, unique, and worth taking. But at the end of the day, the main attractions are the “Don’t Know Why,”, “Everyone Knows,” and “No Longer Making Time” which are honestly sound a little too much the same between each other, which is one of the album’s faults. But it never sounds bland. Once I turn this album on, I have a hard time turning it off. It’s mesmerizing, vast, and immersive. And so it remains one of those few occasions when a comeback album was really worth the wait.

1. Alvvays – Antisocialites

Music is an artform. And as such, its form is open to experiment and question. From songs of silence to songs that last for days — from pop songs to field recordings, we went just about everywhere in form we could go even by the turn of the millennium. But still, most of us have expectations about the most ideal form. Our ideal is a rubber band that snaps back to familiar and comforting. And this creates some sort of abstract baseline for what a great album should sound like, though of course that will vary widely from person to person. Antisocialites is, for me, a perfect album. I adore it on almost every level:

• Songwriting: The most tight-sounding, economical selection of pop songs in 2017. Songs consistently have great hooks through infectious choruses, yet far more is offered. Every song clocks in around the 2 to 4 minute mark, but still finds so much room for scenic detours of sappy synthesizers, spacey interludes, and spastic breakdowns. There are no throwaway songs. There is a cohesive track-to-track flow, yet every song feels unique and stands out sonically and thematically. The lyrics are also a thing to come back to for re-listens. Bittersweet is the flavor of the half-hour, as songs that rock with youthful energy are counterbalanced by jadedness thanks to Molly Rankin’s frank words of regret and yearning. From snappy pop songs to the album’s soaring outro that somehow makes moodiness a thing to be celebrated and shared. (And to answer Molly’s question in that song, yes – yes I do want to forget about life with you tonight).
• Production: Though I believe the songs are well-written enough to stand up on their own without much flashy production, the production is super solid. Dream pop can sometimes rely too much on its sound without anything of depth offered. But as I noted above, the songwriting is on point. Here, we are treated to a dream sequenced drive down memory lane through familiar yet new sounds. Jangle pop, dream pop, art pop, and indie pop are put in a nostalgic blender. But the most important thing is that through all of this, Molly Rankin’s voice is still allowed to shine. Ventures in this genre space tend to consciously allow the vocals to be lost in the mess of reverb and wall of sound. For some artists, it works. But for Alvvays, Molly’s vocals and lyrics are worth their place in the mix to stand out and shine. I think Antisocialites’ overall experience would have suffered otherwise.
• Performance: While this is an area I think a few other artist surpassed this album in, the performance on Antisocialites is still solid. Rankin has improved as a vocalist since their debut, delivering emotional lines with vibrant intensity. The instrumentation isn’t made too synthetic with digital mixing/timing–it has a live, natural sound. The album’s few scattered jam moments like the midsection of Plimsoll Punks are fun and well-executed.

Overall, this was my soundtrack to 2017. Its lyrics send me down so many of my own personal memories, and its sound does very much the same. In 2017, nostalgia has been blaring full blast. But I think we all are faced with the truth that the memory is never as perfect as the reality. Ultimately, we have to move forward and let go. We can do better. The past is not dead, heavy weight. It’s our fuel for becoming better people.

0. Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me

“When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb.”

Thinking about this album, I unconsciously let out a long, dreadful sigh. That about sums up my feelings. This album doesn’t deserve to be compared or evaluated like any other album this year or ever. As I mentioned in the previous review, music is an artform. We have expectations about its form. By form standards, this meets the criteria for a music album. But by content standards, I’m left in staggered awe. This is something that I’m not even sure we should have, and yet, we were given it. It is one of the most dark and intimate things ever put on record.

Death of a loved one of the closest kind is approached with an uncomfortable directness rarely heard in music. Here, death is not glorified; it is not melodramatic. Here, we find a musical journal of a broken man desperately trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle that can no longer be assembled in this material world. Yet he still has material needs, and he still has to take care of the material needs of others–namely his newborn daughter. Phil Elverum of The Microphones and Mount Eerie was already known for emotional tales of grief and longing, but I don’t think he was ever prepared for this. His old tropes–his fascination with the natural world, his colorful metaphors, his equally colorful production–it’s all melted away. It’s all gone. We are left with a hollow recording of someone who is still in shock, looping in the stages of grief.

“You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you.”

It’s hard to find the right moment to listen to something like this. It’s hard to say, “Oh, hey, I want to experience crushing loss and lament in the first person.” We like our art to put some distance between us and the person. We like that the metaphor creates that distance. It softens the blow and leaves hope for our imagination. There is not much hope here. There is only forlorn grief.

When Phil’s wife, Geneviève Castrée Elverum, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I immediately supported the GoFundMe page like any other longtime fans of his music. I think we all felt a sense of obligation out of everything that Phil has done for us. He helped us through hard times, he was the voice in the darkness that lit our way. So when he asked for our help, of course we came forward. We didn’t expect anything in return but hopeful recovery. But she died. And life went on for Phil and their daughter. The donations then went to support their family, and life goes on.

And then this album came out of the blue and shook the music world with its unbearable frankness. Once again, I’m still not sure we should have this. But I can’t question Phil and his grieving process. Perhaps because there was such a public response to his need, he gave a public response of his grief. Or perhaps it’s just the way he knows best to express himself and get through it. “Get through it.” Even as I type the words, it hits me in the gut. It defines the point of this album. Someone has died, but we are still here. We want to dedicate something to them, but it’s not really for them. It’s for us. Life goes on, yet everything reminds us of what was lost. It does that for a long time. And now I let out another long sigh as I’m typing this.

“And I don’t want to learn anything from this
I love you.”

This album is Ranked 0 because it represents what was lost, but can still be considered. And out of respect for that person, must be considered. But as fragile humans, pains us to consider. Phil is left with a void in his heart that can’t ever truly be refilled. But I hope he can refill it enough similarly shaped things, like the love for his daughter, to make life continue to be worth living.

-Eric Wayne Peterson