“Say I’m not what you wanted / No, what you wanna do / And I love what we started, oh / What I could put you through” Musically, it’s a beautiful package, but there’s a lot more here than initially meets the ear.
Throughout, she is freely expressing a full spectrum of complex emotions, including self-doubt and weakness as well as the desire to be in control and the fear of losing it. But SZA joins artists like Tove Lo and Nicki Minaj in driving through the gate while giving no fucks, cornering the territory previously occupied by dudes like The Weeknd and Drake-on “Normal Girl”, which appropriates Drake’s “Controlla,” SZA is both rejecting and envying the cool girl archetype.
The gatekeepers of sexual propriety have traditionally shut out women from telling their stories of desire, power, and insecurity. As tender as it is fierce, Ctrl pulses with sleepy bass and warms with SZA’s unassumingly powerful voice.
“I could be your supermodel if you believe / If you see it in me / I don’t see myself”Ģ017’s most confessional album, SZA’s Ctrl is a frank unpacking of the complexities of love and desire in the modern age. Staples captures the fishbowl-like experience of what it’s like to feel trapped on one side by the reality of being Black in America and on the other side by the excesses of hip hop hegemony, unable to grow beyond the limits imposed by this tank but unwilling to stop bringing attention to it.īig Fish Theory is a deliriously dense record for its tight 36-minute run time, and one of the most exciting rap albums of the year. When he suggests listeners should “just drown in the sound” it’s a double-edged sword-music as escapism but never without being a suffocating reminder of uncertain times. Heavily relying on elements from Detroit techno and house music, Big Fish Theory layers Staples’ smooth flow over pulsing drum & bass in a way that resembles a less aggro and less effortful version of Kanye’s Yeezus, without sacrificing any of the dark forcefulness. “Ain’t no gentrifying us, we finna buy the whole town / Tell the one percent to suck a dick, because we on now” If it takes another six years between records, we can only hope the next one is this good. In the wake of 2011’s great Metals, Pleasure marks Feist as consistently and fully being in her element. Feist punctuates her arrangements with sudden, often unexpected bursts of distortion, drums, and other musical surprises, not the least of which is the Mastodon sample that closes “A Man Is Not His Song.” The minimalism works well to mirror an album that thematically explores isolation and loneliness. This is Feist at her most intimate and stripped down, often only her voice backed by a single guitar. It’s an astounding work and by far her most challenging, without a “1234” or “Mushaboom” in sight. Hazy, unadorned guitar marks the opening strains of Feist’s Pleasure, her first record in six years. “We know enough to admit / It’s my pleasure / And your pleasure” The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters Tove Lo – BLUE LIPS (Lady Wood Phase 2)ġ3. Manchester Orchestra – A Black Mile to the Surfaceġ6. Japandroids – Near to the Wild Heart of LifeĢ0.
The Weather Station – The Weather StationĢ1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Luciferian Towersģ6. The War on Drugs – A Deeper UnderstandingĤ9. *full length, new or unreleased recordings, no live records, compilations or soundtracksĥ0. I thought about extending it to a top 100 list, but a guy’s gotta have standards, right? I listened to well over 300 eligible* albums this year. I found myself wishing I could include more titles in the list below. For others, it was a year for cutting loose, for creating music to lose yourself in-sorry, Eminem, but your bland, overcooked Revival didn’t make the cut. Donald Trump’s name must have appeared in more songs this year than ever before- but don’t tell him that. To some artists, the year felt political their records were infused with righteous anger and renewed determination. 2017 was a garbage fire in so many ways, so it’s fortunate that musically this past year gave us so many solid opportunities to reduce the world to the space between our headphones.