Top 20 albums of 2017

It's the big one! This has been a bit delayed by the late release of BROCKHAMPTON's Saturation III, but I'll be damned if I miss out a great album. This has been another decent, if not outstanding year for music, but as with any year there was a fair share of great projects, so let's go though my favourite 20!

20. Sandy (Alex G) - Rocket

Despite having an awkward and sketchy artist name (and I thought it couldn't get worse than 'Car Seat Headrest'), Alex G produced a breezy, atmospheric album that is mainly folk but has some entertaining surprises. 'Sportstar' is a vocoded piano ballad, and comes right after the Death Grips-esque 'Brick'. This song in particular is at complete odds with the teenage emotion of 'Bobby' and 'Proud', but it means this album is never predictable, and all great.

19. Creeper - Eternity In Your Arms

Creeper is one of the more interesting bands to come out of the UK in the past few years, and seem ready to bring some bombast and theatrics back! 'Eternity in Your Arms' is a collection of 10 fittingly gothic tunes that follow a loose storyline, but the real appeal are the energy of 'Poison Pens' and 'Suzanne', the sing-along of 'Black Rain' and 'I Choose to Live' and the pure self-aware hilarity of 'Misery'. This is sure to be my go-to Halloween album for some time.

18. Sampha - Process

Few artists released albums so difficult to classify this year as Sampha. 'Plastic 100°' and 'Reverse Faults' make a good case for calling it electronic, 'Blood on Me' has the chorus of an alternative R&B song, but a surprisingly funky bassline in the verses, while the instant classic 'No-one Knows Me Like the Piano' is more of a singer-songwriter tune. Either way, this is an inspired, beautiful and textured debut. One mercury award later, I can't wait to see what Sampha does next.

17. St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

I'd never really been a fan of St. Vincent before 'MASSEDUCTION', as although I loved 'Birth in Reverse' something had always stopped me wanting to listen to her self-titled 2014 effort. This has changed things completely, and at this point the purposefully tacky cover art is burned into my brain. A pop concept album with a real brain, this is an album about romance in all it's forms, from the heartbreak of 'New York' and 'Slow Disco' to the fetishism of 'Saviour' and the title track, and all in an innovative synth/guitar sound. 

16. Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods

It's weird to think that one of my most-listened to and undoubtedly one of my most enjoyed albums of the year is a meme mashup album, but 'Mouth Moods' is so good it may just go down as one of the all-time best mashup albums. 'ACVC' and 'Smooth' are hilarious the first time you hear them, but later come to show how similar stylistically opposite songs can be. That's not to mention the 'meme collage' madness of 'The Starting Line' and 'Annoyed Grunt', which seem to introduce a new sample every few seconds. best of all though are where Cicierega edits songs to actively improve them, turning 'In the End' by Linkin Park into something that would fit onto the Mario Kart soundtrack and turning 'Wild Wild West' by Will Smith into an actual banger.


15. The Mountain Goats - Goths

I always love it when I leave an album feeling like I've learnt something, and 'Goths' delivers this in spades. The songs here tell intriguing and charming stories about the goth lifestyle, for which the band clearly has a great affection for. From the bombast of 'Rain in Soho' to the joy of 'Wear Black' and 'Unicorn Tolerance', this is a concept album that proves there are hundreds of dormant ideas for songs, and that you can make a compelling album about anything if this level of humour and melody is incorporated.








14. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard - Everything

A substantial amount of bands have only ever released four or less albums. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard released four significantly different concept albums in 2017 alone, with a fifth apparently planned to be released before the year is out. This could have gone totally wrong, but at the same time it's easy to see why it didn't. The saharan microtonal sounds of 'Flying Microtonal Banana' - my favourite of the four albums - are distinctly different from the end of the world psych-rock of the three-song 'Murder of The Universe', which is completely opposite from the chilled out jazz/funk of 'Sketches of Brunswick East', all of which seemed to lead up to the single song prog-rock masterwork that is 'Polygondawanaland', which was released for free with no copyright, allowing fans to use the music for whatever they want. Throughout 2017 King Gizz were a reliable source of music and memes with a clear love for their fanbase, and surely they deserve a break after LP 5!

13. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now

Hidden behind the terrible cover to 'Life Will See You Now' are the most upbeat, joyful pop songs of the year that helped brighten up a vaguely depressing summer. 'Festival Song' is probably the most cheerful song of the year, and it has competition from the groove of 'Wedding in Finistere', 'To Know Your Mission' and 'What's That Perfume That You Wear'. The rest of the tracklist pulls at the heartstrings with the aching perfection of 'How Can I Tell Him' and 'Our First Fight' to the surprisingly dark 'Postcard #17'.








12. King Krule - The OOZ

Out of everything released this year, this was the album that more than any other I was swallowed by. It's a bleak, depressing album that is filled with drowned, defeated passages that create an atmosphere of sadness so deep it's as if the narrator is converting the gritty English streets around him into an underwater chamber of isolation - 'Czech One', 'La Lune', 'The Cadet leaps' and the title track all build up tension, which eventually bursts into scrappy post-punk/jazz jams like 'Dum Surfer' and 'Emergency Blimp'. If you want to feel depression English-style just sit down and listen to this.






11. IDLES - Brutalism

If 'The OOZ' was depression English style, the this is anger English style! IDLES have such a raw punk energy, that you feel like you are being assaulted every time you listen threw it. Frontman Joe Talbot's vocals are maybe the most exciting I've heard in 2017, bile-filled and harsh on 'Well Done' and 'Mother' but surprisingly emotive on cuts like 'Slow Savage' and 'Exeter'. If you think punk is dead, this will revitalise your hopes, keeping the simplicity, raw production and energy of the classics but updating the song topics for the bleakness of modern-day England.







10. The Horrors - V

Another album that's easy to get lost in, 'V' presents a pitch black world of... well, horror. What really intrigues me about this project though are the lyrical themes of delusion in the digital world. 'Press Enter to Exit' and 'Point of No Reply' look at online extremism, while 'Something to Remember Me By', 'Ghost' and 'Machine' look at online ghosts, dead accounts of the gone. All in all, it's an exciting synth-driven album perfect for technophobic fans of 'Black Mirror'.









9. Kirin J. Callinan - Bravado

Few songs have brought me more joy this year than the ones on 'Bravado', which may also be the experimental album here despite it's pop stylings. This is an album where the creepy funk of 'Down 2 Hang' is followed by the pop rock of 'Live Each Day'. This is an album where pitch-shifted vocals from modern EDM are slotted into an 80s synthpop jam in 'S.A.D', and cowboy ballad 'Big Enough' turns into a call for World peace complete with a screeching cowboy drop. That's not to mention the title track 'Bravado', which is one of the most fitting and brilliant closing tracks of the year, summing up and explaining the face-pissing, dick-flashing persona Callinan adopts here. All this time, it was all bravado.



8. Remo Drive - Greatest Hits

Quor mate what you can say about Remo Drive that hasn't already been said by the man himself James Baker. Now everyone loves a some proper lads who can scream out a bit of emo while sill wearing minions shirts in their videos. You can see the influence from other bangers on this album with a wee hint of pinkerton and my name jeff rosenstock all mixin into this masterpiece. Whenever im alone in the house i like play all there songs together and scream out the few lyrics can make out. The instruments are mmmm nice with the drums going doon doon doon dun dun doon doon doon.. don don don at the start of your killing me and i cant talk about the rest of the instruments because im a drummer so i don't bother to listen to them. While im writing this im watching the cinema classic of pich perfect and i think an album of this caliber should have its own remake of pitch perfect with only this album and the live version of it and there demos before this being sung. That would be a classic movie. There is so much potential in the future albums and movies based around these three blokes and cant wait to see em boom up and become proper big boys in the music.

7. The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir

This album makes me feel old in the best possible way. Going through main architect Stephin Merritt's literal life story is incredibly entertaining, mainly because of how ordinary it seems. Nothing particularly strange happens, making this a joyful look at one normal man's history, from the cynical hilarity of 'Life Ain't All Bad' to the electric riffs of 'How to Play the Synthesiser' and 'Foxx and I'. The first half of the album is undeniably stronger than the second, but it's still full of highlights, like the goosebump inducing 'Fathers In The Clouds' and the heartbreaking 'Have You Seen It In The Snow'.






6. Run The Jewels - RTJ 3

 'RTJ 2' was my favourite album of 2014, so I had high hopes for the follow up, and when this dropped on Christmas day last year it completely delivered. The album is thematically split between top-tier bangers like 'Stay G.O.L.D' and 'Legend Has It' and more politically charged tunes - '2100', 'Talk to Me' and the revolutionary closing track 'Kill Your Masters'. Best of all is the thought-provoking and gut-wrenching 'Thursday In the Danger Room', which is easily one of the best songs Killer Mike and El-P have ever made. Overall, this was a great way to start 2017, and it has been on repeat all year.







5. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

2017 wasn't exactly the best year for humanity, and no album seemed to predict this better than 'Pure Comedy'. Almost every song here tackles a concept that is very recent, whether its name-dropping the oculus rift on 'Total Entertainment Forever' or looking at increasingly radical and divisive politics on 'Two Wildly Different Perspectives'. Many people (including myself) slated this as boring and pretentious when it first came out, but something compelled me to keep listening. What I found was a rare album that isn't afraid to tackle huge political and philosophical themes with some of the best lyrics of the year and a biting sense of humour, with music that grows on the listener each time they listen. Brilliant, although it can also give you existential dread.

4. Lorde - Melodrama

The pop concept album has been increasingly common thanks to megastars like Beyonce, but 'Melodrama' just might be the best we've got so far this decade. This is an album where every every track is outstanding, and 'Supercut', 'Writer in the Dark', 'Perfect Places', 'Liability', 'Homemade Dynamite' and 'The Louvre' are all classics, and the rest of the tracklist glues these tracks together remarkably well. This is a startlingly mature and nuanced look at what it's like to be a party-savvy but heartbroken teenager in 2017, yet it ultimately feels like this album will last much longer than just this year.






3. BROCKHAMPTON - SATURATION I, II and III

Slightly less prolific but more consistent than King Gizzard this year were BROCKHAMPTON who managed to produce 3 almost equally great albums in 2017. Saturation I is maybe the best of the 3, with 'STAR', 'GOLD' and 'MILK' all being some of my favourite songs of the year, but this can also be said of the sequels - 'JUNKY', 'SWAMP', 'QUEER' and 'SWEET' from sat II and 'BOOGIE', 'BLEACH' and 'HOTTIE' from Sat III. The sheer volume of great music they released this year is surely some kind of World record. Watching every artist in BROCKHAMPTON gradually improve over the three projects has been one of the most wholesome experiences of the year, and I hope that these boys keep up the hard work for 2018.



2. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

It seems like every year I encounter a new 'Saddest album I've ever heard'. In 2015 it was 'Carrie & Lowell' by Sufjan Stevens, in 2016 it was 'Skeleton Tree' by Nick Cave and now it's 'A Crow Looked At Me' by Mount Eerie. This is the kind of album so powerful that it only needs to be listened to a single time, and after i initially checked it out from morbid curiosity it's haunted me. The minimally orchestrated lyrics are consistently soul-destroyingly sad from the first line to the last. That the album manages to find some kind of conclusion in 'Crow' is honestly amazing, and is what elevates this into something truly legendary.





1. Alex Cameron - Forced Witness

And yet, after all of the philosophical themes of 'Pure Comedy', the game-changing 'Melodrama' and the heart-breaking 'A Crow Looked at Me', my album of the year is an album about online dating. But I'll be damned if this isn't the catchiest, most enjoyable and ultimately thought-provoking album of 2017. The first thing you'll notice about Alex Cameron's masterpiece is it's brilliantly terrible cover art, which shows only a little indication of the character study the listener is about to embark upon. After my first few listens of this I was already sold on it as a great album, with every song being a glitzy, catchy take on soft-rock, but when I really dug into the lyrics the genius behind this became clear. The characters presented in 'Running Out of Luck', 'Candy May', 'Marlon Brando' and every other song here are not the hyper-macho stereotypes I first thought, but actually pathetic, creepy sketches of what extreme masculinity can lead some to. Whether it's the teenager stalking of 'StudMuffin96' or the online transactions presented in the hilarious 'Beautiful Eyes'. Every track on here is vitally important to it's concept and it's the most I've loved an album this whole year. Bring on 2018!

The Best Albums of 2017 So Far

I realise that I'm a month late on  making a mid-year album list, but that's essentially what this is, and as such no albums from July 1st onwards are included here. With that disclaimer out of the way, I would like to say that 2017 has so far been an alright year for albums, albeit one also filled with some substantial musical disappointments ('Humanz' by Gorillaz, for example.), and while I'm yet to find an album I fully connect with, some great material has still been released. Keep in mind that this list is just my opinion, and that I haven't heard every album that came out in the first half of this year, and with that lets get n with my top 15 albums of the year so far!

15/14. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Murder Of The Universe/ Flying Microtonal Banana

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are supposedly attempting to release a total of 4 to 5 albums this year, and although this initially had me worried that we would be flooded with mediocre, hastily created songs, the two albums released so far are both brimming with crazy, unique ideas. While neither album is perfect - The songs on 'FMB', while all great do blend into each other a bit, and 'MOTU' has an excessive amount of interludes, but if the rest of this years projects are of this quality, by the end of the year King Gizz will surely have gained even more attention than they already have.

 13. Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog

This was one of my most anticipated albums of the year, as a fairly big fan of DeMarco, and 'This Old Dog' lived up to every expectation I had had of it. It's chilled out, slightly downbeat and has a number of great songs that flick between psychedelic synth-led pieces like 'On The Level' and guitar ballads like 'One Another'. 

12. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

It feels to wrong to say this in a celebratory review, but I can't help but feel like 'DAMN.' is a little overrated, and is inferior to 'To Pimp A Butterfly' and 'Good Kid M.A.A.D City', but then again most albums are. But while I may find 'LOVE.' to be one of Kendrick's weakest songs and some cuts like 'FEEL.' and 'GOD.' to be instubsantial, the rest of the album is, as you would expect, amazing. From the lyrics of 'LUST.' and 'FEAR.' to the incredible beats on 'DNA.', to the earworm choruses of 'ELEMENT.' and the mega-hit 'HUMBLE.', this is an album which deserves the huge amount of commercial success it's gained.

11. Creeper - Eternity In Your Arms

I've had a lot of flip-flopping on my opinion of this album. It's the kind of project I would love to hate on, with an image that reeks of edginess and of the excesses of goth-rock, mixed with pop-punk attitude, but alas, the more I played this the more I had to admit to myself that I loved it. The meat-loaf esque vocals and melodramatic choruses were just what I needed in a year with largely mellow singer-songwriter albums dominating my playlists. If you think it's too edgy, or adolescent then I don't blame you - although only if you can make it though 'Misery' without cracking a half-smile.

10. Brockhampton - SATURATION

It seems like everyone has agreed that so far 2017 hasn't been a great year for hip-hop with the exception of 'DAMN.', but for those who weren't expecting Future's double album to be a their AOTY, there was a lot of good stuff be found, specifically 'Saturation'. Combining bars that are both hilarious and depressing ('STAR') with inescapable hooks, ('GOLD') this is likely going to be one of the best hip-hop projects of the year.






9. Sandy (Alex G) - Rocket

Another album I flip-flopped on, although unlike 'Creeper' I still haven't fully decided the extent to which I like this album, but for now I can certainly say that I love a lot of the songs. 'Bobby', 'Proud', 'Powerful Man ' and even 'Sportstar' have all become some of my favourite tunes of the year, and now I'm just waiting to see if the weirder corners of the album will come together or not - so this album could be higher or lower come December.






8. Sampha - Process

This is the album I want to win the Mercury award this year. It's refreshing to find a debut album that tackles so many different ideas and succeeds at all of them, giving Sampha a song which already feels like a classic with '(No One Knows Me) Like The Piano' and some others - 'Blood On Me', 'Plastic 100 degrees C' - which seem destined to become future hits. If Stormzy beats this I will be very annoyed.





7. Remo Drive - Greatest Hits

I hadn't heard of this band before they had already released 'Greatest Hits' (Which isn't actually a Greatest hits album, for clarification.), but it is so far my favourite rock album of the year. The album is charmingly lo-fi, with every brittle guitar and slightly out-of-time drum beat makes it seem as flawed and human as the lyrical themes. It also helps that tunes like 'Art School' and 'Yer Killin' Me' are simply some of the best songs I've heard this year.





6. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now

Probably the most upbeat, happiest album I've enjoyed this year, this is what I wish more pop music sounded like. It's lush, filled with sunshine, yet doesn't compromise on the lyrics, which are some of the strongest aspects of this album. Songs like 'Evening Prayer' with it's "Doo-doo doo do doo do" chorus wouldn't have been filled with lyrics about a cancer survivor in the hands of a lesser artist, but not only does it give the song gravitas, but it doesn't detract from the cheerful mood. It's a shame the cover is so rank.



5. The Magnetic Fields - 50 Song Memoir

Most artists probably couldn't make an album that's 50 songs long, but when it comes to Stephin Merritt it's nothing compared to his classic '69 Love Songs' triple-LP. '50 Song Memoir' is an album that feels effortless to listen to despite it's length because it's core concept is so intriguing, that each song represents one year in Merritt's life up to age 50. It also makes the album immensely satisfying to listen to, especially the first 20 songs which chart his early childhood and teenage experiences. The music also uses a huge variety of instruments to sum up each year's mood with a nostalgic soundscape.



4. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me

Easily the most depressing album I've heard this year, this is almost painful to listen to due to the intimacy of the songs combined with the subject matter. I haven't felt as emotionally affected by an album like this ever before, not even by 'Skeleton Tree' by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds last year, which was somewhat similar in tone. If you listen to music purely for emotion, this may well be your album of the year, and it may even end up as mine if I can bring myself to listen to it again.





3. Run The Jewels - RTJ 3

Technically this was released on Christmas day 2016, but it was released in physical form in 2017, and either way it would be a travesty if this were to miss my albums list on such an obscurity technicality. Other than being an amazing gift that I don't think anyone was expecting on December 25th, this is an outstanding end to what is surely the best trilogy in rap history. While it may be slightly inferior to my 2014 AOTY RTJ 2, it is still a major leap forward for Killer Mike and El-P, with more political lyrics that will make you want to start a revolution ('Don't Get Captured', 'Kill Your Masters') mixed with flex anthems that make you feel awesome whenever you play them ('Legend Has It', 'Stay Gold'). And it's free on their website!

2. Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

Loads of people don't like this album, and I can see why. Hell, I was massively disappointed for the first few days after it came out, before I started to focus on the lyrics rather than any of the other aspects. Only then is the genius of 'Pure Comedy' unleashed. It's purposely the complete antithesis to the instant gratification of modern life, with Josh Tillman highlighting this with 13-minute behemoth 'Leaving L.A', itself seemingly a weapon to be wielded at those not willing to truly appreciate his work. The concepts behind nearly every song are equally ingenious, looking at the last moments of a self-righteous internet warrior and an imaginary confrontation with God. It's a shame that the detachment and sarcasm of this album have led to many giving the LP the label of 'pretentious', because those are the features that make it so great.

1. Lorde - Melodrama

This was actually my number 2 until I re-listened to all of these albums for this list, but I can now put it no lower than number one. It's the kind of album that I feel will not only be seen in many years time as a great summation of the 2017 music scene, but will be enjoyed as a great album. There isn't a single weak track on this thing, and every other track is a standalone masterpiece, so when taken in all at once it's incredibly powerful. 'Supercut', 'Green Light', 'Homemade Dynamite', 'The Louvre', 'Liability' and especially 'Writer in the dark' are all highlights, and with any luck this will be my generation's break-up album of choice.