2016 Music Thread

[Knoxbanedoodle]

...seeing as we're almost finished with the year, some highlights:

Kevin Morby, his entire oeuvre (which currently consists of three albums, the most recent being Singing Saw, absolutely outstanding.

Ditto Bahamas.

Maybe most excited about the horribly named Car Seat Headrest: hard to peg, but elements of Weezer and LCD Soundsystem and bad punk here. Their Teens of Denial is currently in heavy rotation.

The new Angel Olsen is excellent.

Lianne La Havas is my favorite lady of the year. Blood is great from start to finish, "Green and Gold" irresistible.

Ezra Furman's "Lousy Connection" may be my favorite track of the year, though the old Monkees song "Goin' Down" competes. 

San Antonio's NIna Diaz just put out a really intriguing strange album with some, I think, big winners on it. Album is self-titled, no it isn't, it's called The Beat is Dead, "Rebirth" and "January 9th", at least, are terrific.

*ETA: RIP, Leonard Cohen. What a voice. Shoulda been you winning that Nobel prize. In a sideways way, Kevin Morby could go on to have such a career.




 

[Bench]

Everyone died in 2016.

[Ron Brand]

Everyone died in 2016.

No shit. And Mick Ralphs just had a stroke. It's been an absolutely devastating year, both for iconic musicians as well as local ones around me. It's like some kind of shitty reverse Rapture.

[austro]

No shit. And Mick Ralphs just had a stroke. It's been an absolutely devastating year, both for iconic musicians as well as local ones around me. It's like some kind of shitty reverse Rapture.

It's one of the downsides of getting older.

[juliogotay]

It's one of the downsides of getting older.

It's one of the bigger downsides.

[Ron Brand]

It's one of the downsides of getting older.

I get it if you're in your 80s, or even in your early 60s as a touring musician but I've lost people to suicide, car accidents, cancer, etc. and they were all 34-45. It's been a tough one.

Hell, if you just count friends I've lost five this year, two by their own hand, and a couple more aren't doing so well.

[Nate Colbert]

Hell, if you just count friends I've lost five this year, two by their own hand, and a couple more aren't doing so well.

Sorry to hear that, Ron.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

Chuck Prophet agrees, it's been a Bad Year for Rock and Roll.

[austro]

Hell, if you just count friends I've lost five this year, two by their own hand, and a couple more aren't doing so well.

Man, I'm sorry to hear that, RB. I hope 2017 works out better for you.

[Ron Brand]

Man, I'm sorry to hear that, RB. I hope 2017 works out better for you.

Thanks. Everyone around me is tryiing to figure out what the hell is going on. Is this the new normal, because we're getting older and have a wider sphere of friends? Is this the inevitable correction after many years of relative peace and happiness? I've had stupid off-the-chart good luck in my life but growing up without a roadmap is harder than I thought it was going to be.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

Following the success of their eponymous debut album Cosby, Pills, and Gash, the band has added a forth member and released a new album. Look for Cosby, Pills, Gash, & Bung's Déjà Poo in a record store near you.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

It really was released in October last year so I guess it goes here, but the new Wax Tailor "By Any Beats Necessary" is an extremely good listen.

[Ebby Calvin]

Finally finished my 2016 list:

TOP 20 FAVORITE ALBUMS:
1.   Bon Iver – 22, A Million
2.   Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial
3.   Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool
4.   Sturgill Simpson – Sailor’s Guide to Earth
5.   Various Artists – Day of the Dead
6.   Weyes Blood – Front Row Seat to Earth
7.   William Tyler – Modern Country
8.   The Hotelier – Goodness
9.   Shearwater – Jet Plane and Oxbow
10.   Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack
11.   Moonface – My Best Human Face
12.   Dawes – We’re All Gonna Die
13.   Wye Oak – Tween
14.   Tedeschi Trucks Band – Let Me Get By
15.   Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered
16.   Explosions in the Sky – The Wilderness
17.   Childish Gambino – Awaken My Love
18.   Jim James – Eternally Even
19.   Angel Olsen – MY WOMAN
20.   Esperanza Spalding – Emily’s D+Evolution

FAVORITE EPS
1.   Wolf Parade – EP4
2.   Joan Shelley – Cost of the Cold

TOP 10 FAVORITE SONGS (LIMIT ONE PER ARTIST)
1.   Radiohead – Daydreaming
2.   Bon Iver – 33 “God”
3.   Weyes Blood – Do You Need My Love
4.   Moonface – Risto’s Riff
5.   Carseat Headrest – Destroyed by Hippie Powers
6.   William Tyler – Kingdom of Jones
7.   The Hotelier – Piano Player
8.   Sturgill Simpson – Brace for Impact (Live a Little)
9.   Frightened Rabbit – Wish I Was Sober
10.   Mitski – Your Best American Girl

HONORARY MENTION - FOLK
•   John Paul White – Beulah
•   Aofie O’Donovan – In the Magic Hour
•   Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop – Love Letter for Fire
•   Lisa Hannigan – Prayer for the Dying

HONORARY MENTION - HIP HOP
•   Noname – Telefone
•   Ka – Honor Killed the Samurai
•   Chance the Rapper – Coloring Book
•   Anderson .Paak - Malibu
•   Tribe Called Quest – We Got it From Here… Thank You
•   Danger Doom – The Mouse and the Mask (2005 – new to me)

HONORARY MENTION - INSTRUMENTAL
•   Inventions – Maze of Woods
•   The Olympians – s/t
•   Eluvium – False Readings On
•   Peals – Honey
•   Nicolas Jaar – Sirens

DIDN’T LISTEN TO ENOUGH TO RANK (BUT I LIKED IT)
•   David Bowie – Blackstar
•   Wilco – Schmilco
•   Phantogram – Three
•   Whitney – Light Upon the Lake
•   King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity

DISAPPOINTING ALBUMS
•   Local Natives – Sunlit Youth

[Knoxbanedoodle]

Excellent list. We differ on Dawes and very little else. I would add Nathaniel Ratliff and the Night Sweats to the best albums in their stead.

Also I have a strange distaste for Childish Gambino. Would substitute the new Frank Ocean, I think.

[Ebby Calvin]

Excellent list. We differ on Dawes and very little else. I would add Nathaniel Ratliff and the Night Sweats to the best albums in their stead.

Also I have a strange distaste for Childish Gambino. Would substitute the new Frank Ocean, I think.

I need to check out that Nathanial Ratliff album, but I'll stand by my Dawes affection.  It's dad rock, sure, but it's good dad rock.

I like Donald Glover from Community and I'm excited about his Lando turn in the new Han Solo movie.  Childish Gambino isn't for everybody, but the dude's range is pretty impressive.

[Knoxbanedoodle]

Had no idea he was playing Lando--that's exciting. I like him as an actor and respect his artistic range (he could compete for an EGOT!).

The Rateliff album, turns out, was 2015, so never mind. But yeah, it's excellent.

[chuck]

Big(ly) Wye Oak fan. Other than that I basically have no idea who any of these people are.

[Ebby Calvin]

Big(ly) Wye Oak fan. Other than that I basically have no idea who any of these people are.

Ahem.

10.   Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack

[chuck]

Ahem.

10.   Frightened Rabbit – Painting of a Panic Attack

Dude. I might have heard tell of that Bowie feller, too. I'm hyperbolizing. I'll do that every now and again.

I liked PoaPA better than Pedestrian Verse and the Owl John record. But I still consider TWOMD pretty unassailable.

[Ty in Tampa]

Awaken My Love is high on my top ten.

[Ty in Tampa]

And just because I didn't see it in the list, I'm really digging American Band - Drive-By Truckers

[Duke]

And just because I didn't see it in the list, I'm really digging American Band - Drive-By Truckers

Listening to them a lot on XM.  Really good.

Any love for Chris Stapleton?

[Ty in Tampa]

Listening to them a lot on XM.  Really good.

Any love for Chris Stapleton?

I dig him. Haven't listened to enough of his solo stuff but I loved the Steeldrivers when he was heading them up.

[GreatBagwellsBeard]

Coloring Book was such a delight.  Still can't stop listening to it.  The little Christmas mixtape that Chance released on the 24th was really fun too.

Eylsium was really good too.  Good pick there.

The two critical darlings I couldn't get into this year were Car Seat Headrest (because I guess I never got the appeal of The Replacements the first time) and Frank Ocean (which sounds like it should get better with additional spins, but it doesn't).

From a hip-hop perspective, I also really enjoyed D.R.A.M.'s "Big Baby D.R.A.M." and Young Thug's "Jeffrey" album.

Since they weren't mentioned elsewhere, Beach Slang and St. Paul and the Broken Bones also had solid albums this year.

[Ebby Calvin]

Coloring Book was such a delight.  Still can't stop listening to it.  The little Christmas mixtape that Chance released on the 24th was really fun too.

Eylsium was really good too.  Good pick there.

The two critical darlings I couldn't get into this year were Car Seat Headrest (because I guess I never got the appeal of The Replacements the first time) and Frank Ocean (which sounds like it should get better with additional spins, but it doesn't).

From a hip-hop perspective, I also really enjoyed D.R.A.M.'s "Big Baby D.R.A.M." and Young Thug's "Jeffrey" album.

Since they weren't mentioned elsewhere, Beach Slang and St. Paul and the Broken Bones also had solid albums this year.

Car Seat Headrest is actually not in my wheelhouse either.  But the kid is 24ish years old and there's just so much great stuff going on in that album, start to finish.  I will admit his lyrics aren't the best, but they work with what he's doing.

I never clicked with "Jeffrey," but I also didn't give it much run.  Also I know RTJ technically released in 2016 but I'm putting that beast of an album in 2017.

And dammit I didn't know there was a new St Paul album out!

EDIT: Along the lines of St. Paul, I highly recommend The Olympians, which is listed above.  It's instrumental but here's the band:  "a group of regulars that includes members of the Dap-Kings, Lee Fields’ band, and other players like Michael Leonhart, a noted trumpet prodigy who directs Steely Dan’s band and was formerly a house player for the now-defunct label Truth and Soul Records."

[Ebby Calvin]

Listening to them a lot on XM.  Really good.

Any love for Chris Stapleton?

I liked last year's Traveller quite a bit.  He shares Jason Isbell's producer, the same guy who also did Sturgill's Metamodern Sounds....

[drew corleone]

I struggled to find much that I liked last year. Whitney was by far my favorite with the new Head and the Heart firmly second. Dr. Dog released an album via Bandcamp that I thought was good - much better than the remastered demo compilation from earlier in the year. Hamilton Leithauser and Rostam would probably round out the stuff I really liked. Anything else in a top ten would only be because everything else was more underwhelming.

I did not like Car Seat Headrest much at first but I've tried to give it another chance lately and it's not bad. I tried to get into Parquet Courts the second time around and found it as difficult as the first album from a few years ago. And I thought new albums from some bands I generally like (Local Natives, DBT, J Cole, Kanye, Bon Iver, Avett Brothers) ranged from "meh" to garbage. I am hoping 2017 is a better year.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

The Flaming Yawns' "Flatline Peakers" starts with a lot of promise but soon becomes a droning one-note symphony.

iButt's "Bar Stools" is shitty from the beginning to the end.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

Urethra Franklin has a new album out, Depends, How You Pamper Me.

[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

Also, Public Access T.V.'s debut album, Never Enough, is pretty darn catchy. BTW, they are a real band and the album came out last September. Current favorite song is, End Of an Era.