My top 40 albums of 2017
Last year I did 30, this year I’m doing 40. I can speak about albums from my heart, from my head or from my body. Most albums have an preview song in this playlist (apart from 36, 21, 19, 5 that aren’t on spotify) so listen along while you read! There’s also example songs at the end of each piece if you want a taster then.
40. Run The Jewels: Run The Jewels 3
Hope born out of defeat, with both being spread all over the album and myself when listening to it, this album gets my blood pumping, and as such it mostly supercharges my mind in its intelligent lyrics and excellent production. The last song feels like their battle manifesto. Song.
39. Björk: Utopia
After feeling her heartbreak in every crevice of my body, this album feels like release, it’s windswept movement, light and flighty. There are very overwhelming feelings in this album, mostly positive, and they come across in a kind way, I feel her transformation. Song.
38. Oxbow: Thin Black Duke
There’s a willful abandon throughout this album, the acrobatics of the voice connect with my heart, and yet it has a lot of space to become what it is, as such it involves and moves the body and the guts, makes me want to sing and physically be in the spacious cacophony they create. Song.
37. Colleen: A flame my love, a frequency
There’s so much cold in Colleen’s music, that the opening song feels like a November winter idyll. There’s coziness, there’s waves, there’s quiet beauty, sparse and ethereal. Through the detachment, each of these songs grow and stay and feel reliable in the space they occupy. Until it just stops. Song.
36. Various Artists (Nyege Nyege Tapes): Sounds of Sisso
It took me one listen of this album to put it on here, and I have no doubts on it. Dancing to sounds of a different world, Dar es Salaam, the production has choppy and high energy bits. It feels like an espresso taken straight to the body, it’s jittery and fascinating. Fave. Song (Strobe warning).
35. Lorde: Melodrama
The way she builds on her talents to get here is really great, the intensity in the lyrics and voice, she taps into her own emotional depth with more lush instrumentation. The stripped back Liability ends up being the rawest representation, giving her voice space to get into the listener’s heart.
34. Kendrick Lamar: DAMN.
Kendrick throws me around on this record, though it has more introspective calm than storm, it brings up the wanted emotions, and feels both exploratory and settled. It’s a personal album, while commercial, and it gets stuck in heart and ear. It ends up being a little inconsistent about my feelings for it. Song.
33. Guerilla Toss: GT Ultra
Another album that I have loads of fun with and gives me energy. It’s short, it’s fast paced, and it makes me want to sing and shout and move! Crystal Run is my favourite, where the auto-tuned vocals are used brilliantly in this over-glitzy, synthetic song about taking charge of your own life. Song.
32. Blanck Mass: World Eater
This definitely gets my energy up in both the more aggressive and more low-key moments. Rhesus Negative I got into straight away, it’s pummeling and has delicacy underlining all the energy and screams. Hive Mind then seduces me into a climactic build before finishing satisfied. Song.
31. Converge: The Dusk in Us
What I love most here is the way the album builds and keeps tension, the energy is trapped, it tries to escape and it’s pummeled right back into shape. In the title song it almost feels low on energy until the chorus brings it out with a vengeance. I feel tense listening to this, while always intrigued. Song.
30. Rapsody: Laila’s Wisdom
Grappling with topics of self worth and empowerment, she’s channeling her grandmothers wisdom, from a place of humility and care. With her lyrical ability and topical focus, this becomes a very heady album, through which she hits the heart at times, and show she’s one of the best rappers around. Song.
29. ROSALÍA: Los Ángeles
In terms of sheer beauty, this album is one of the best this year, it plays with at heart strings and the stomach, it brings shivers and travels all around the body. It’s mostly just Rosalía’s voice and a flamenco guitar, and with that comes passion, delicacy and intricate playfulness. Song.
28. Tyler, The Creator: Flower Boy
This made its way into my body more than my mind, there’s something romantic about it, as he serenades with keys and strings throughout, the songs ooze specific moods and feelings. The album connects deeply, giving a clear peek into Tyler’s current state of mind and soul. Song.
27. Protomartyr: Relatives in Descent
Mood wise, this album is very coherent, and while lightly abrasive in a couple of ways, it’s a really easy listen, the tone and feel just floating into me, with lyrics and instrumentation that facilitate that process. The balance of rhythm and melody with the heavier tone feel just right. Song.
26. Alvvays: Antisocialites
An album of dreamy sweetness (doesn’t usually grab me) used its loveliness to get into my heart, and once there uses the open sounds to resolve knots of feelings within her, mostly around relationships (lovers, friends). In its honesty and clarity the feelings in the music feel resolved once heard and felt. Song.
25. Kirin J Callinan: Bravado
There are moments in this album that feel like EDM, or super poppy, and I love it. It’s the kind of album that makes me want to dance and sing around the house at the top of my lungs, fun as hell, and behind all it’s loud declaration there are some subtle messages that are really on point. Song.
24. Quelle Chris: Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often
This album is an intense exploration of the self and its insecurities, through: his expectations of his best self (the you), his experiences, other people, and a collage of social performance. Through lyrics, mood, performance, and production it all feels real and relatable to me, intellectually and emotionally. Song.
23. Kelela: Take Me Apart
Production got this album stuck in my ear, like the delayed Take Me Apart and grimy LMK beats. On this Kelela tells a story of a breaking relationship turning into her taking her own space & power, and as such the album travels from the heart & stomach to the body with movement, then back to the heart.
22. Bell Witch: Mirror Reaper
The effect of this album comes in waves, alternating between pulling me down with calm sadness, lifting me up with steeling resolve, pushing me down with death’s doors, and moments of comfort spruced in. It’s a patient and immersive listen, and feels intimate while reflecting the world. Full.
21. Idles: Brutalism
This one is raw and explosive (y’know, brutal), with melodic moments. The main instinct is to join a mosh pit and with wild abandon sing/shout the lyrics, e.g.: “Sexual violence doesn’t start and end with rape/It starts in our books and behind our school gates/Men are scared women will laugh in their face/Whereas women are scared it’s their lives men will take”. Song.
20. Ibibio Sound Machine: Uyai
Dance. It’s fun, energetic and incessant in rhythm. With this album I’m in constant motion, with it traveling up and down my body, physical movement everywhere. Song.
19. Big K.R.I.T: Forever is a Mighty Long Time
This needed to be a double album, as both the MC (Big KRIT) and the individual (Justin Scott) are explored through music, and as such it comes across as a full and powerful expression of this musician. As such there are very heady moments as well as dancy and even emotional ones. Song.
18. Charli XCX: Pop 2
This team up is one that just gets pop in the age of the internet, it doesn’t go as experimental as Vroom Vroom, and as such it makes its way under my skin and makes me want to move. It’s music that creates a comfortable space in my ear where it can just hang out and stay stuck, and I do not mind at all. Song.
17. Neil Cicierega: Mouth Moods
Starting an album with a medley of slightly meme-y songs that don’t go further than the opening lines (All Star, One Week, Best of You) somehow just works. Destroying expectations, creating musical paradoxes is this man’s art, and my brain laughs throughout, and it warms my heart nostalgically. Song.
16. Uncommon Nasa: Written at Night
My fascination with this album goes quite far, the instrumentals and the lyrics bring you next to Uncommon Nasa and the 17 features, a mood of early hours creativity. A surprisingly concise and coherent album, it has a nocturnal feel, a slightly exhausted and tired-crazy tint. Nasa created the playing field for many underground rappers to complement perfectly. Song.
15. SZA: Ctrl
This album grew on me more and more, and is my favourite TDE release since To Pimp a Butterfly. The feelings, insecurities and perspectives focussed on in these songs are raw and the world of these songs become real. Within that, Garden (Say It Like Dat) hits me hardest, because it feels both understandable and sad that it isn’t communicated. Song.
14. Angles 9: Disappeared Behind the Sun
This is the kind of album that after one listen I loved. It’s loud, intricate, explosive, layered and subtle. This thing is a confusing headrush. There are moments that are almost lounge next to moments that make me need to move in an embarrassing way, even if it’s just to let jittery energy out. It lives in my mind and body and plays with my heart. Song.
13. Jlin: Black Origami
The playful first notes made me a fan. From that point on Jlin makes me move and dance and experience and move and feel. It’s such a rhythmic album, that words of motion are all that do it justice, they feel tribal, raw and visceral, so it forces movement out of me, and if not my body, both my mind and my physical heart speed up. It’s pure energy flowing out through the music. Song.
12. Algiers: The Underside of Power
Politically one of the strongest albums this year, and next to powerful lyrics. The urgency of the voice and instruments with the lo-fi aesthetic make it feel like it’s the pumping heart and soul of a revolution. There grit and guts all over this album, and it brings the same out in me. It makes me want to do, create, build, change. Also shout and let out my whole expression. Song.
11. Richard Dawson: Peasant
Game of Thrones would gain massively by putting this guy’s music in the show, there’s something nostalgic and mystic, such that even through his choppy weirdness, the medieval folk tugs at heartstrings. From my first listen I loved this, especially Soldier, the vocal rhythm and emotion with a confessional feel and declarative attitude is lovely. Song.
10. Feist: Pleasure
At this point in the list you might know that subtlety and playing with emotions adeptly appeal to me (or abrasive maximalism), and this album is an absolute pleasure to listen to within that. It’s a kind of lie back and listen album, it’s a raw expression, many times sparse, sometimes the hum of recording equipment. It’s an album that taps into simple clear deeply resonant truths, both mentally and emotionally, and in that way it is a pleasure, and the patience that the slow pace requires, isn’t a stretch. Rather it’s brought out easily and lovingly from me. The album is broad in topics, and it’s easy to listen through it and soak each of the stories in it fully. Song.
9. Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe
The album is diverse, personal and engaging, Princess Nokia puts this reflection of herself, her heritage, and her attitude all over this album. One gets a broad and clear feel of this person, since what holds it together is this artist, her heart and soul. Stories from her childhood, her mood, her surroundings and her mind space, make it a very authentic feel of what she will create going forward. As an introduction, this album could hardly be better, it hits the head and heart and immerses me fully into her world, and in that space Tomboy is probably one of the clearest and of my favourite claims of space in style, attitude, personality in the hip hop game. Song.
8. BROCKHAMPTON: SATURATION I/II/III
Brockhampton saturated the market this year with 3 albums, a total of 48 tracks, 14 music videos, and a Viceland series, spread across the work of 14 guys, including vocalists, producers, management and webmaster. When it comes to their music the perspectives/stories represented, the styles represented and the energy, are all really diverse, and they have both great one liners and topics, the lyrics come out quite unfiltered. Because of this diversity I feel these albums in different ways, sometimes just listening to their stories, others feeling them and the moods, and others being energised. They can hit each of these points brilliantly from the sweaty Heat to the intoxicating Junky. They’re one of the most interesting bands out right now. I want more.
7. IGLOOGHOST: Neō Wax Bloom
This was my most anticipated album this year, Kendrick might have been the only exception, and it did what I expected, it created a world, took my hand and lead me on this uncontrollable journey of colour, shapes and sound. He still tries to ease you in on the first track but that cuts short as the journey explodes into place. The wondrous worlds that Iglooghost creates are disorienting, and within them as many serene moments as energetic bursts, it’s a crazy world that demands to be traveled into and through, it’s a story that’s worth feeling and listening. Also dance. Lots of weird flailing dance in the middle of this is brought up. Song (strobe warning).
6. Valerie June: The Order of Time
This album was a grower, the first times I heard it, it didn’t click. So I left it for a few months, and when I came back to it in the summer it just nestled itself in my heart and hasn’t left since, so when Long Lonely Road starts, a loving sadness bleeds out of me instantly. Each time I heard this album since it edged itself closer and closer to my favourites of the year. It’s an album that feels like a full expression from the heart, and her voice definitely helps that perception of mine, as comfort radiates from it, and is a flowing natural extension of the words and intention when sung with. The ethereal nature of With You feels especially loving with only a couple bounds. There’s pain in these songs, as well as so much love, and yeah, she’s got soul. Song.
5. Xiu Xiu: FORGET
One of the first albums I loved this year, it’s like the voice hooks me at the start of the album in the way it embodies the emotions and then strings me along for the whole album. For Xiu Xiu, this album is really poppy, and just the playfulness within the whole album, while it feels really like its a slightly heavier set of emotions is great! There are times you want to dance, others that you want to sing, others you just want to feel with the voice and instrumental and all of these is true due to the expressiveness in each song. To that point there were a bunch of lines that stuck in my head for ages, yet it was the most subtle songs Get Up and the Petite that were my favourite, in the way that the voice embodies the mood. Song.
4. Open Mike Eagle: Brick Body Kids Still Daydream
This is my favourite hip hop album of the year, the way he embodies every song is excellent, getting real views into mentalities and lives in the public housing complex of his aunt in Chicago, which was torn down in 2007, destroying histories, displacing thousands of families, and with little regard for any impact. As such this album honours them in many ways, the anger and the hope, the individual masks and the communal feeling, the loving and the painful destruction of community, home and space. The feelings in each song are brilliantly portrayed through the music and lyrics, and as such while it’s an intelligent album it goes straight for the heart, it gets under my skin and in that way to my mind, it grabbed me by the feelings before the messages. Song.
3. Perfume Genius: No Shape
This album is luscious and grand and just beautiful, from the frailty in Mike Hadreas’ voice to that in some of the instruments used, and invasive grandiosity played behind ethereal vulnerability. The arrangement is down to the detail, giving space to Mike’s sometimes strange vocals to have their space and gain power and presence. The opening song is a palate cleanser of whatever came before and readies me for the explosion of beauty on the album, and in that it feels like a spiritual declaration. And from that space the album travels more and more to the personal to the grounded reality of Mike, finishing with a personal declaration of “I’m here! How weird.” He has a lot stuck in his heart, soul and head, and with this album he has released it for it to be felt by all. Song.
2. Ibeyi: Ash
My heart reacts quite immediately when I start this album, it gets heavier and makes me loving and slightly sad, bringing me back to when I first heard this album. That week, for several reasons I was sad, Weltschmerz kind of sadness was within me, and the opening song I Carried This for Years put that feeling on hyper-drive. Listening to this album is a full body emotional experience for me, for a few associations I have to it, it’s very loving, as well as melancholic, to the point where it’s difficult for me to give this a description that makes sense. All the emotions that they are trying to transmit are clear as day, and the mood and their voices are excellent vessels for it. It’s a wonderful listen that in usual circumstances will simply be pleasurable and quite beautiful. Song.
1. Mount Eerie: A Crow Looked At Me
When I heard the opening song, Real Death, for the first time — the mood setter that could have easily been the title of this album — I proceeded to listen to it at least 20 times throughout the day. The album was yet to be out, and I was already fascinated with it. See, Phil Elverum was married to Geneviève Castrée who died of cancer in summer 2016. After that he wrote and started recording this album, fully living in the grief from start to end, rejecting her death explicitly, and experiencing the depression with rawness that is inescapable, not only for him but for me as the listener. The vocals are the best and most painful element throughout. This album has been described as barely music, it’s stripped back, the emotions he’s laying bare aren’t a choice for the listener as much as for him. I experience this album very intensely in my heart, it’s a heavy listen, and worth it on so many levels. It’s been clear to me since it came out that it would be hard to top. And here it is. Song.
