Best music of 2016

Cafe Society
1

I’ll start with my Top Ten. Would love to hear feedback on my choices, and please chime in with your own picks!

My #10 song of 2016 is “Sun Don’t Shine” by the Drive-By Truckers.
This one hooks you right in with the piano and drums, almost sounding “pretty”; then it builds into a more typical lovably scuzzy DBT sound when the vocals and guitar kick in.

My #9 track of 2016 is “Atomic Number”, from the supergroup case/lang/veirs, the only act to land two spots in my Top Ten (and four spots in my Top 50 list overall). Neko Case and k.d. lang should need no introduction. Laura Veirs has had a little lower profile; but I was psyched to see her get this level of recognition, as I’ve liked her for a while (her 2005 tune “Galaxies” is a particular favorite).

I’m a sucker for alt-country with a traditional country sound, and Margo Price fits that bill nicely. Here she is from her SNL appearance earlier this year, playing “Since You Put Me Down”, my 8th-ranked song of 2016.

This next tune has a dreamy, languid sound and au courant lyrics. It’s my #7 song of 2016, John K. Samson’s “Select All Delete”:

I’m looking forward to seeing the big Oscar contender “La La Land”. In the meantime, I can swoon over this highlight from the soundtrack: Emma Stone’s “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”. Her slight imperfections as a singer make it all the more charming, and help make it my 6th-favorite song of 2016.

When a band I loved years (decades!) ago reunites and releases new material, I always kind of hold my breath and steel myself for the likelihood that it’s not going to be any good, and may even tarnish their reputation. So what a pleasant surprise that the new Lush record is great. Holds up against almost any of their classic output. “Out of Control”, my #5 track of 2016.

I’ve always loved the Nirvana song “In Bloom”. And as mentioned earlier, I’m a sucker for alt-country artists who channel a classic sound. So this track could have been engineered in a lab for me personally. It’s Sturgill Simpson, with his cover of “In Bloom”, coming in at #4 on my Top Ten of 2016 countdown.

As promised, case/lang/veirs are back, this time at #3 with “Supermoon”.

Like most discerning music fans, I’ve loved Wilco’s music for years. I’m also an impish sort, who enjoys teasing my wife in various ways, including responding to things she says with “schm****”, as in “Dinner, schminner”. So I was beside myself when Wilco released their album “Schmilco” this year (yes, I know Harry Nilssen did it years ago, but still), hoping it would be great. It is, especially this track, “If I Ever Was a Child”, my second-ranked song of 2016.

::drumroll:: My #1 song of 2016 is kind of an outlier. Unlike most of my Top Ten, it’s neither a group I have any history with, nor are any other tracks from the album even in my Top 50 playlist. I just really, really love this one song of theirs for whatever reason. Check it out, and see if you do too. It’s The Yearning, with “When I Lost You”.

2

I don’t listen to a whole lot of pop music, but I really loved Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Frank Ocean put out an amazing record. Radiohead put out good music after two mediocre records. David Bowie’s blackstar is one of my faves too.

3

I really like that new Radiohead record too. I wanted to like the Bowie (I love so much of his older stuff) but I just couldn’t get into it.

4

I enjoyed listening to “The Record Company”. Notably “Off the Ground” and “Rita May Young”.

The Revivalists “Wish I Knew You” is kind of catchy.

And another track I found quite interesting was “Devil’s Teeth” by the Muddy Magnolia’s.

I listen to “The Spectrum” on SiriusXM, that’s where I find my new music. You know actual music, not some auto-tune synth pop garbage.

MtM

5

I definitely get a sense of your taste from listening to these. I had never heard of these groups or songs, but I liked them, especially “Rita Mae Young” and “Wish I Knew You”. Added them to my ever-expanding music catalogue–thanks!

I agree with you about “auto-tune synth pop garbage” (although I suspect unlike you, I can dig an actual creative piece of synth music that’s not just Scandinavian assembly line dance pop). And what makes me really mad is how people who feel that way about corporate pop music are attacked in this “poptimist” era as being old fogeys (into “dad rock”) and probably racist and sexist besides.

6

I consume music in album form, so here’s my top 10 albums of 2016:

  1. BJ Barham, Rockingham
  2. Whiskey Myers, Mud
  3. Mark Chesnutt, Tradition Lives
  4. Blackberry Smoke, Like An Arrow
  5. Dori Freeman, Dori Freeman
  6. Erik Dylan, Heart of a Flatland Boy
  7. Margo Price, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter
  8. Drive-By Truckers, American Band
  9. Kelsey Waldon, I’ve Got A Way
  10. Cody Jinks, I’m Not The Devil

It was a great year for traditional country, heartland, and roots music, with career-defining works by established acts like DBT, Mark Chesnutt, and BJ Barham (known best as the frontman of American Aquarium), and stellar debut or sophomore albums by up-and-comers like Cody Jinks, Margo Price, Kelsey Waldon, and Dori Freeman. The future appears to be in good hands.

7

These two points of agreement make me eager to check out your other eight picks, none of which are familiar to me. Thanks! Surprised though given your fairly specific genre tastes (mine are all over the map) that you don’t have Sturgill Simpson on there.

8

New Bon Iver

9

I’m one of those stick-in-the-mud Bon Iver fans who liked their old sound much better.

10

Metamodern Sounds In Country Music is one of my favorite albums, so I rushed out to Target on release day and bought A Sailor’s Guide To Earth…and hated it. Over many re-listens, I’m at the point where I find it good, but not great. I enjoy the sentimentality, the politics, and Simpson’s vocals. The problem is the arrangements: too many songs are drenched with horns, keyboards, and strings. It’s not the instruments themselves that are the problem - I like the brass-heavy Morphine a lot, and Kacey Musgraves’ Pageant Material last year used strings here and there to good effect - I simply don’t much care for these particular arrangements.

So, it’d make top 20, or Honorable Mention, but not top 10. Which is a shame, because it would have put two Kentuckians (Kelsey Waldon is the other) in my Top 10. Maybe next year.

If you like Drive-By Truckers, BJ Barham (& American Aquarium) should be up your alley. Rockingham is more country-oriented than American Band, both musically and in terms of subject matter, but both are critiques of the American status quo and the forces that maintain it. You get that Patterson Hood-y goodness on songs like “American Tobacco Company” and “Water In The Well”.

Oh, and as a Simpson fan, note that he’s playing SNL on the 14th; hopefully with stripped-down, minimalist cuts from Sailor’s Guide. The songs are crying out for a Let It Be Naked-style paring down.

11

Fair enough. I would agree at least that *Metamodern *is better than Sailor’s, though I like them both a lot.

12

To me, the best albums this year (in no particular order) were “Jeffery” by Young Thug, “Puberty 2” by Mitski, “untitled unmastered” by Kendrick Lamar, “Freetown Sound” by Blood Orange, “Hopelessness” by ANOHNI, “Blackstar” by David Bowie, “The Life of Pablo” by Kanye West, “Lemonade” by Beyonce, “A Seat at the Table” by Solange, “Blonde” by Frank Ocean, and my #1 was “Coloring Book” by Chance the Rapper.

13

I felt the same at first. But the new stuff grew on me. The melodies are still there. Just instead of a guitar it’s electronic stuff…

14

Caveat: I still haven’t heard Bowie’s Blackstar because I want to hear all his albums in chronological order and I’m way behind on that.

  1. Niki & The Dove - So Much It Hurts - Stevie Nicks as produced by Quincy Jones is an A-OK concept by me, plus one of the coolest videos of the year.
  2. Shura - What’s It Gonna Be? - I wanted to give this song a hug.
  3. Hurry - Nothing To Say - I feel like I should like this band more than I do because I like their influences (Teenage Fanclub being the obvious one here), but this song is my favorite of theirs.
  4. Duel - The Kraken - what would have Black Sabbath have sounded like with Jim Morrison as a frontman? Awesome if he sings about releasing the kraken.
  5. Chris Jewell - Rise And Fall - I did not hear this song in a Starbucks or a Barnes & Noble but it does sound like the kind of music you’d hear there. I hope to hear more from this new artist in the future.
  6. Into It. Over It. - Adult Contempt - I do like some emo.
  7. Lydia Loveless - European - thought her latest album was a disappointment but I did like this one a lot.
  8. Metallica - Moth Into Flame - I guess the Dopers around here didn’t really care much for the new album but I really liked this song from it.
  9. Black Wizard - Revival - almost 7 minutes in length but the recurring parts that somehow keep coming back heavier and heavier makes me wish it was even longer.
  10. Bleached - Wednesday Night Melody - a blend of Joan Jett meets Weezer that I found irresistible and my most listened-to track of 2016.
15

Very cool. I already know I don’t like Metallica, Beyonce, or the final Bowie album, and that I do like Mitski, Drive-By Truckers, and Margo Price. So I want to make a playlist of the other nominees to investigate. But would it be unconscionable to ask **ISiddiqui **and Human Action to nominate one song from each album? A 24-song playlist is far more digestible than one with presumably over 200 tracks on it.