2017 :: TOP ALBUMS – 30 THROUGH 02
In a year when it seems like the safety of the free world could rest on a single tweet, a mere 140 characters, I thought there could be no better writing theme for this list this year than that. Each review (except for the top spots) are limited to the length of a tweet. I have tried to capture the essence and strengths of each album in that format. I think it actually worked surprisingly well. Enjoy!
30
The Magnetic Fields
50 SONG MEMOIR
50 songs of garden-fresh musical exploration. 50 songs of sardonically droll observation. One man’s autobiographical remembrance.
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29
Kelela
TAKE ME APART
Kelela grinds her way through 14 sexy, heady songs that marry Bjork and Janet to create something holistically new and totally refreshing.
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28
Julie Byrne
NOT EVEN HAPPINESS
This album is a potent metaphysical balm. Its sparse organic beauty conveys a sense of simple, fleeting elegance. Nick Drake would be proud.
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27
Milo
WHO TOLD YOU TO THINK??!!?!?!?!
Packed with complex ideas, hard-hitting beats and evocative instrumentation, this is a thinking man’s flag-raising for true hip hop. Real.
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26
Thundercat
DRUNK
This is “Cucko for Cocoa Puffs” RnB. Or spaced-out soul? Post-fusion jazz, maybe? Gonzo yacht? Alt? However you slice it, it’s all good.
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25
Priests
NOTHING FEELS NATURAL
“Nothing” is cocksure DC surf punk that bludgeons complacency with no quarter. Howling, seething, acute.
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24
Chalotte Gainsbourg
REST
Dark, personal, grief-laden and cinematic, Gainsbourg gives us pop at its most artistic on “Rest.”
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23
Run the Jewels
RUN THE JEWELS 3
“3” stands as an avengers’ angry polemic, punctuated by urgent beats and razor-sharp production. This is an act of bona fide rap resistance.
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22
Broken Social Scene
HUG OF THUNDER
In a society awash in uncertainty and hypocrisy, “Hug of Thunder” stands as an assertion, an emotional fist in the air. It’s going to be OK.
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21
Mount Eerie
A CROW LOOKED AT ME
Cancer took Phil Elverum’s wife last year. “Crow” explores her memory, death and his life after. Personal doesn’t describe it. Harrowing.
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20
Girlpool
POWERPLANT
“Powerplant” fuses strains of Pinback, Pavement and Throwing Muses to create an album at once very fresh yet still comfortingly familiar.
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19
Andy Shauf
THE PARTY
Like a lost classic from the great songwriters of the 70s, “The Party” paints a gallery of portraits, robustly rendered and richly realized.
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18
The Weather Station
THE WEATHER STATION
Tamara Lindeman gives us crystal clear, honest, muscular songwriting that would make Carole King sit up and listen.
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17
Big Thief
CAPACITY
Winding melody leads us through 11 examples of folk rock at its most ferociously personal and viciously winsome.
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16
Moses Sumney
AROMANTICISM
Sumney floats and croons his way through 11 glittering meditations on modern love and isolation. Cosmic beauty in a disposable world.
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15
Brand New
SCIENCE FICTION
An album both majestically monumental and gnashingly intimate, “Science Fiction” is Brand New’s brilliant crown of indie rock sovereignty.
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14
Valerie June
THE ORDER OF TIME
A royal, regal march through rootsy, dusty places of the heart, “Order” defines a new authenticity, replete with honest expression.
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13
John Moreland
BIG BAD LUV
The musings of a true American troubadour with a heart of crumbling asphalt and a soul of sweet honeysuckle on a cool summer’s night.
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12
Jay Som
EVERYBODY WORKS
Songs of personal revelation, brilliant production and undeniable hooks add up to fuzzy pop gold on the genre-bending “Everybody Works.”
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11
The XX
I SEE YOU
Both expansive and intimate, minimal and lush, “I See You” is a commanding release of rare equilibrium. Emotional electronic perfection.
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10
Jamiroquai
AUTOMATON
“Automaton” arrives to remind us that Jamiroquai are kings of their rare blend. Jazz, disco and funk swirl into a sweet, muscular melange.
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09
Kamasi Washington
HARMONY OF DIFFERENCE
Like a lost companion piece to Oliver Nelson’s 1961 hard bop classic “Blues and the Abstract Truth,” “Harmony” is a new jazz masterwork.
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08
Julien Baker
TURN OUT THE LIGHTS
This is an act of cathartic communion. Baker delivers devastating, sparse, intimate hymns that wrestle with faith, vulnerability and hope.
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07
Perfume Genius
NO SHAPE
“No Shape” stands apart as a new kind of protest album, bathing the listener in power, transcendence and above all, a unique baroque beauty.
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06
Queens of the Stone Age
VILLAINS
Mark Ronson joins the party and the Queens end up in bed with Bowie and Iggy snarling somewhere in Berlin. Hooky, glammy, groovy AF.
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05
Esmerine
MECHANICS OF DOMINION
Carefully crafted neu-chamber music. “Mechanics” walks the line between subtlety and squall, march and creep. Masterful, emotional, vivid.
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04
Slowdive
SLOWDIVE
Like plunging headlong into life-giving waters after wandering in a shoegaze wasteland for 22 long years. This. Is. Simply. Beautiful.
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03
Ibeyi
ASH
Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz create a triumphant meditation on spirituality, divinity, identity and civil rights. Fierce, radiant, forceful.
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02
LCD Soundsystem
AMERICAN DREAM
Reunions are rarely this perfect… Never this transparent. Murphy updates a “Remain in Light” vibe to find a brilliant, poignant maturity.
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