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!