For me 2017 was the year of streaming and Spotify due to the tragic death of What.cd (RIP) the year prior which led me to discovering and listening to music a little differently than the past few years. While I had more entries on my albums of the year spreadsheet tracker than ever (a good thing by all accounts) I struggled to find and connect with as many groundbreaking albums as I would have liked and in turn had less clarity than usual about what really were the truly standout records of the year. Or maybe it’s more that most all the supposed great albums weren’t all that good or interesting after all? Maybe it’s a little bit of both. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s just that 2017 was a year of adjusting to things that often don’t make sense and expecting it to feel normal.
My prevailing take away from 2017 was that a lot of supremely talented, highly marketable, and well established bands and artists that we’ve come to expect great things out of put out music that put nicely was not very overly inventive, creative and addictingly different and put more bluntly was largely over rated and over hyped based on pre-existing high expectations.
Imagine if you could somehow create a magical music time vacuum where you could somehow give all the music from the familiar indie and mainstream heavy hitters an attempt at objective criticism by considering their latest work as if it was them releasing their debut album. Would you still feel the same way about their latest release? Would you have even managed to discover them if you hadn’t already connected with some of their past work or be able to easily see that all of your internet friends “like” this hot new artist/band? Really though, take any of your current favorite music artists and think for a second…..is your favorite record of theirs one of their early establishing albums or one later on in their career after they’d hit bonafide headliner status?
Really though, is there anyone out there that liked Radiohead’s “A Moon Shaped Pool” anywhere near as much as “Kid A”, “Amnesiac”, or “Ok Computer”? Would you ever have listened to Justice’s last two albums if there never was a Cross(†)? Would Arcade Fire even still be a band (much less, selling out arenas) if they started with “Everything Now” instead of “Funeral”? Would Eminem be the revered rapper he is if he initially released the trash fest of “Revival” instead of “The Slim Shady LP”?
For most all sane music minds, the answer to all of those rhetorical questions is an easy no and with the exception of very bad “Revival” (sorry diehard Eminem fans) the latest Radiohead, Justice and Arcade Fire albums aren’t terrible by any means and even have some good or great moments. But you’re kidding yourself if you think you would have listened to or cared about their later works if you weren’t already coming at each with a pre existing affection for the artist and a desire and hunger to re-experience the joys and nostalgia of your early favorite music memories with them in the form of new material. With that in mind I dare say that many of the so called “best albums” of 2017 weren’t much more than popular acts releasing new music. And that’s not necessarily an all bad thing. But it also isn’t an all good thing either.
Packaged in familiar sounds, predictable layouts and currently trending genres, many of 2017’s consensus top albums left me less musically inspired and creatively fulfilled than I’ve felt in other years . Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of quality (and some epicly great) music releases still; but reflective of today’s like-bait instant attention social atmosphere, I’ll go out on a lim(b) and bet that few 2017 albums will long be considered as pinnacle classics and will be remembered as pushing music’s sonic boundaries forward to new places or re-carving old classics in new, refreshing, and unexpected ways.
That being said, if you’ve come this far I sure hope that you keep scrolling on below to my hodge podge of a list and find a thing or two that you didn’t know about and find some audio excitement out of. You might not know where the gems lie but all rocks can be pretty cool in the right light so just dig in and go as deep as you want and can into the musical soil. Hopefully before not too long you’ll be rocking out and wondering why so many people thought that Lorde’s album was so great when there was all this other really cool shit too. For better or worse (it’s a choose your own adventure you get to decide type of thing) I promise that my list is further detached from most of the other critic lists this year than most. So either i’m losing my on to something or i’m really losing my mind.
But since critics are the critics for a reason, you can peruse all the official music opinions on what the best records were in 2017. Metacritic as usual does a solid post showing the top 10 of every notable list out there while (new to me this year) Albumoftheyear.org (aka AOTY) also puts out a nicely comprehensive music year list aggregate which unlike Metacritic actually takes into account votes for albums ranked outside of the top 10 in said critics lists.
Metacritic’s 2017 Music Critic Top 10 Lists
AOTY 2017 Music Year End List Aggregate
Again, there are (as always) tons of new albums to check out if you know where to look and are willing and interested in giving them a chance. While I’d like to say that i have some pretty interesting ones below, you may discover that our tastes are completely different and that you agree with the majority of everyone else and really like all the albums I didn’t list that were so prominently featured in the aggregate lists above. Regardless, do yourself a favor and listen to a thing or two you’ve never heard of and see where it takes you. Maybe, just maybe you’ll surprise yourself. Even if you don’t like surprises. Because really, if you think about surprises long enough, aren’t they really just formal prizes after all?
Or if pictures are not really your thing and you’re really more of a text person…
| 100. Anthony Naples – Us Mix EP |
| 99. Galcher Lustwerk – Dark Bliss |
|
98. Colleen – A flame my love, a frequency
|
| 97. NMESH – Pharma |
| 96. Giraffage – Too Real |
| 95. Joe Goddard – Electric Lines |
| 94. Groundislava – Endless Voyage |
| 93. Bibio – Phantom Brickworks |
|
92. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flying Microtonal Banana
|
| 91. Khotin – New Tab |
| 90. Johnny Jewel – Windswept |
| 89. Angel Olsen – Phases |
|
88. DJ Heure – Mechta / Outsider Resource
|
| 87. Lapalux – Ruinism |
|
86. Letherette – Where Have All The People Gone?
|
| 85. Kölsch – 1989 |
| 84. Bicep – Bicep |
|
83. Jon Brion – Lady Bird (Original Soundtrack)
|
| 82. Throwing Snow – Embers |
| 81. Moon Diagrams – Lifetime of Love |
| 80. Monster Rally – Flowering Jungle |
|
79. Seb Wildblood – The One With The Emoticon / Familiar Boundaries
|
| 78. King Krule – The OOZ |
| 77. Blanck Mass – World Eater |
| 76. Lee Gamble – Mnestic Pressure |
| 75. Toro y Moi – Boo Boo |
| 74. John Maus – Screen Memories |
|
73. LCD Soundsystem – American Dream
|
| 72. Road Hog – Haul Ass |
|
71. Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder
|
|
70. James Heather – Stories From Far Away On Piano
|
| 69. Dark Sky – Othona & Kilter/Acacia |
| 68. UNKNOWN ME – Subtropics |
| 67. Mount Kimbie – Love What Survives |
| 66. NxWorries – Yew Lawd! (Remixes) |
| 65. Beach House – B-Sides & Rarities |
| 64. Real Estate – In Mind |
| 63. Gaussian Curve – The Distance |
| 62. Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins |
|
61. Letherette – brown lounge, vol. 3 & vol. 1
|
| 60. Mac Demarco – This Old Dog |
| 59. DJ Python – Dulce Compañia |
|
58. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice
|
| 57. Kara-Lis Coverdale – Grafts |
| 56. Gas – Narkopop |
| 55. Claude Speeed – Infinity Ultra |
| 54. Queens of The Stone Age – Villains |
| 53. Forest Swords – Compassion |
| 52. Mall Grab – Pool Party Music |
| 51. Girlpool – Powerplant |
| 50. Bonobo – Migration |
| 49. Clark – Death Peak |
| 48. Animal Collective – Meeting of the Waters |
| 47. Letherette – EP4 |
| 46. Boogarins – Lá Vem a Morte |
| 45. The xx – I See You |
| 44. Laurel Halo – Dust |
| 43. Ariel Pink – Dedicated to Bobby Jameson |
| 42. Mount Eerie – A Crow Looked At Me |
| 41. Geotic – Abysma |
| 40. Sinjin Hawke – First Opus |
| 39. Teengirl Fantasy – 8AM |
| 38. Vince Staples – Big Fish |
| 37. Avey Tare – Eucalyptus |
| 36. Kelly Lee Owens – Kelly Lee Owens |
| 35. Actress – AZD |
|
34. Calvin Harris – Funk WAV Bounces, Vol. 1
|
| 33. Kelela – Take Me Apart |
| 32. Moses Sumney – Aromanticism |
|
31. Visible Cloaks – Reassemblage / Lex
|
|
30. DJ Seinfeld – Time Spent Away From U
|
|
29. Japanese Breakfast – Soft Sounds from Another Planet
|
|
28. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, James Mcallister – Planetarium
|
| 27. Faye Webster – Faye Webster |
|
26. You’ll Never Get To Heaven – Images
|
| 25. (Sandy) Alex G – Rocket |
| 24. Aimee Mann – Mental Illness |
| 23. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – The Kid |
|
22. Kamasi Washington – Harmony of Difference
|
| 21. Shigeto – The New Monday |
| 20. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN. |
|
19. Laurence Guy – Saw You For The First Time
|
| 18. Daphni – Fabriclive 93 |
| 17. Dauwd – Theory of Colours |
| 16. Aldous Harding – Party |
| 15. Washed Out – Mister Mellow |
| 14. Jacques Greene – Feel Infinite |
| 13. Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up |
| 12. Tyler, The Creator – Flower Boy |
| 11. Jane Weaver – Modern Kosmology |
| 10. SZA – Ctrl |
| 9. Four Tet – New Energy |
|
8. Lindstrøm – It’s Alright Between Us as It Is
|
|
7. Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex
|
| 6. Ryuichi Sakamoto – async |
| 5. Big Thief – Capacity |
| 4. Sampha – Process |
| 3. Slowdive – Slowdive |
|
2. Ross from Friends – Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes/ You’ll Understand / The Outsiders
|
|
1. Yves Tumor – Experiencing The Deposit Of Faith
|
The life and times of a Flashflooder 