February Album reviews

Justin Timberlake - Man Of The Woods

This album is getting totally roasted by critics, and for the most part it deserves it, although I will also say that I don't think this is an outright awful project overall. Some parts are undeniably bad: the pretentious interludes, 'Supplies' (Along with it's music video) and the uncomfortable 'Sauce' - but most of the stuff here is just uninteresting. It's hard to imagine anyone particularly hating or liking 'The Hard Stuff' or 'Flannel' or the just-as-boring-as-the-title-suggests 'Livin' Off The Land' and 'Breeze Off The Pond'. There are even a few songs I enjoy here, the title track is a mid-tier Timberlake song and 'Filthy' is an incredibly brave if unfitting and awkward choice for the opening track. Even the more pop-country leaning 'Young Man' and 'Say Something' are pleasant enough. Hell, one of my biggest problems with JT in general is mostly absent here, as the songs don't climb into tedious 7-minute plus runtimes. So maybe not as bad as people are making it out to be, but no classic. 4.4/10

Dream Wife - Dream Wife

It seems Dream Wife have released a fairly average power pop album which has been favourably compared to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but I don't hear it. Nobody could argue anything on here is as good as 'Maps', but discounting this unfair comparison (Which is almost entirely because both bands are fronted by women and in the same genre), 'Dream Wife' is an album which would be better if it didn't sound like so many British 'Saviours of rock' from the 2010s as the music press tries to sell second-rate indie music to a fanbase which has moved on. Absolutely nothing is wrong with this album, it's just not what indie rock needs, and sounds like it could have come out about 10 years ago. 5.2/10

Rich Brian - Amen

Formerly known as Rich Chigga, Rich Brian is a trap-rapper that makes music which could only have come out in 2018, with lyrics heavily focused on internet culture and production which exemplifies the mish-mash of genres that my generation has been exposed to thanks to streaming. The production is the most appealing aspect of 'Amen', with songs like 'Cold' having a soundscape juicier than the majority of trap. Unfortunately despite having some great singles this album is ultimately held back by the lyrics, which aside from several lines every song, are the typical trap topics of sex ('Kitty'), flexing ('Occupied') and haters ('Enemies'). 6.3/10

Hookworms - Microshift

This is one of the most ambitious and surreal rock albums I've found so far this year. With strong influences from The Flaming Lips and Animal Collective (Specifically 'Merriweather Post Pavilion', with 'The Soft Season' sounding like an outtake from that very album), this is largely still a very original album. Filled with synth interludes and lengthy compositions, this would usually not be a particularly accessible album, but the melodies are so captivating. 7.9/10




TDE - Black Panther Soundtrack

Surprisingly cohesive, and I do quite like 'All The Stars' (Basically by SZA) and 'I Am' (Basically by Jorja Smith), but Kendrick is largely disappointing and FUTURE's god-awful falsetto on 'King's Dead' is one of the worst things i've heard all year. (Also the film was fairly average). 5.8/10







MGMT - Little Dark Age 

I was really hoping that 'Little dark age'  would live up to the 80s-drenched single of the same name, and it definitely has. Nothing on here even really sounds much like the song 'Little Dark Age' other than gothic synthpop anthem 'One Thing Left To Try', but all of the songs are linked by a fun-filled homage to the electronic side of the 80s, from the glorious silliness of 'She Works Out Too Much' and 'Me and Michael' to the morbidly twisted 'When You Die', with it's bendy, quirky riffs and expletive lyrics. It's not perfect, and while no track is below average the LP is certainly front loaded with it's four best songs being the first four tracks, but it's hard to complain when the closer 'Hand It Over' rolls in. 8.5/10

The Wombats - Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life

I have a love-hate relationship with The Wombats, and much of their material teeters on an awkward line between great and awful. I can't stand the twee cheesiness of 'Let's Dance To Joy Division', yet I've been playing 'Be Your Shadow' since it was released in 2015. This new album sadly falls mainly onto the twee cheesy side of things and I can't get behind it. The synthpop of their last album has been swapped out for an awkward combination of post-punk and pop that works alright on 'Lemon to a Knife Fight' but usually falls flat. The lyrics try desperately to be smart, especially shown on 'Turn', and it ends up becoming cringe-worthy. 4.5/10


U.S Girls - In a Poem Unlimited
This is a really weird album, and it mixes funk, pop, electronica and rock together in a way I haven't really heard before, and it works fantastically well. Opener 'Velvet 4 Sale' has jazzy wah-guitars, crackling synthesisers, horns and layers of vocals, all underpinned by a disco beat, and while some tracks follow this formula ('Rage Of Plastics'), others go in the complete other direction, like the electric storm of 'Incidental Boogie'. The production is also great, with the different elements being brought together with cohesion while maintaining breathing space in the mix. Difficult to classify in genre but easy to categorise in quality. 8.4/10

6ix9ine - DAY69

I have absolutely no idea what to think about DAY69, or 6ix9ine in general. His brand of trap is fairly unique, shouting abrasive curses over moody beats, but gets tiring quickly since most of the songs sound identical (Including having one song twice on the tracklist), even if they are entertaining. The mixtape is weighed down with two posse cuts, 'RONDO' and 'KEKE' which are fine, but sound completely separate from the rest of the material. Also, 6ix9ine could have at least removed the 'SCUUUMM GAAANG' intro from most of these tracks so nobody has to hear it 8 times in a row. 4.0/10

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy - ALBUM OF THE MONTH

I was heavily biased towards loving this album before it came out, the original 'Twin Fantasy', released in late 2011 is probably within my top 5 albums of all time. It's amazing then that I actually like this cleaner, updated version more than the original. This 2018 version takes everything great about the original - the songwriting, the lyrics and how uniquely and brilliantly interconnected the whole album is - and improves the major issue I had with the album, the ultra lo-fi production. Along the way there are a few moments I love in the original which have been lost, such as the intro to 'Cute Thing', the outro to 'Nervous Young Inhumans' (Which is otherwise soooooo much better on the 2018 version) and the 'Thank God for the little things, then f*ck God that they're little things' line in 'Beach Life-in-Death', but I can sacrifice these moments for the new moments that we get. 'High To Death' is  improved so much it sounds like a brand new song, the new outro to 'Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)' is shockingly romantic (Like most of the album), and with a massively improved mix 'Bodys' can finally live-up to its potential as maybe the best indie-rock anthem of the decade. Best of all are the improvements made to the 13 and 16 minute-long 'Beach Life-In-Death' and 'Famous Prophets (Stars)', the former benefiting from an increased variety of guitar sounds that stop the song getting as jading as the previous version could occasionally get, and the latter being transformed from a middling cut to one of the best songs on the album by a newly added outro which reaches a climactic high. This will almost undoubtedly be my album of the year and also has a real chance of being my favourite album of the decade. 10/10

January album reviews

This year I want to improve the quality of my music writing so it's more than just using the same adjectives over and over again, and to do this I'm going to try and write a small review for every newly released album I hear at the end of each month. This is something that will undoubtedly get harder as the year goes along, as barely anything is released in January and Spring compared to Autumn, but hey, we'll see how it goes. The albums will be listed chronologically other than my 'album of the month' which will be at the end.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Gumboot Soup

The absolute madmen actually released 5 albums in 2017, and they were all pretty great, with 'Gumboot Soup' actually being one of the best ones. The compilation-style approach to the tracklist feels refreshing considering the last 8 Gizz albums have all been concept albums to some extent, and some of their best songs yet are on this - 'The Great Chain of Being' is monstruos, and 'Superposition' sounds like a drive down a tunnel at night. Not to mention that the chilled out 'Last Oasis' and 'Beginner's Luck' are some of the best summer tunes of the year so far (Although it'll be a while before I can properly utilise them). 8.0/10

Jeff Rosenstock - POST.

'WORRY' by Jeff Rosenstock is easily one of my favourite albums of the 2010s, and following it up was always going to be difficult, and 'POST.' has given us a 'Room On Fire' situation, with an album which is still generally great but is significantly less good than it's predecessor, leaving me with the feeling it will get overlooked in time. 'USA' is maybe the best song here, along with 'TV Stars', and the shorter punch of 'Yr Throat' and 'All This Useless Energy' stand up well to 'WORRY', but the album as a whole feels surprisingly short. The 5 minute ambient outro is a major reason why, but the other issue is that 'Beating my Head Against The Wall', 'Powerlessness' and 'Melba' all sound like songs Jeff has already done better. Still, even below-average Jeff is better than almost every pop-punk band. 7.5/10

They Might Be Giants - I Like Fun

2017 was the year I really got into American oddballs They Might Be Giants, and as such I was somewhat excited for 'I Like Fun', as despite having a career that has been going on for over 30 years they are remarkably consistent, and although their recent material lacks the reckless fun from their first five or so releases, it's still pretty great. 'I Like Fun' carries this on, and although it feels only several frustrating steps away from greatness, it's definitely one of their most concise, cohesive and dark albums. TMBG have always dealt with death as a subject matter in their songs, and that is the same here, with opener 'Let's Get This Over With' and closer 'Last Wave' maybe being the best examples of this, but the real standouts are the bizarre title track - which I hated on first listen but has grown on me since, it sounds like pretty much nothing I've ever heard, like a sci-fi soundtrack with brass and extended drum rolls - and especially 'When The Lights Come On', which ranks as maybe the most sincerely sad TMBG song ever created. 7.0/10

Camila Cabello - Camila

This sounds exactly like what I expect a pop album by a girl-group member gone single to sound like, with a focused grouped tracklist of well-made but ultimately dishonest and bland pop music. 4.3/10

CupcakKe - Ephorize

I first heard CupcakKe ultra-explicit brand of hip-hop on Charli XCX's 'Lip Gloss', and 'Ephorize' is pretty much everything a fan of that could want, with clever innuendos and hilarious wordplay that relates mainly to sex, genitalia or 'stylin on the haters'. Luckily there's enough variety in the production and moods of these tracks that this album never gets boring or overly obnoxious, and other than several annoyances - the contemporary EDM instrumental of 'Post Pic' is a drag near the end of the album - but standouts 'Cartoons' and 'Cinnamon Toast Crunch' make up for it. 7.8/10

Fall Out Boy - MANIA

Oh God. This album is so bad it makes me regret how negatively I reviewed 'One More Light' by Linkin Park last year, because this is worse. Even if we pretend that the failed attempts to copy mainstream EDM and pop trends on 'YOUNG AND MENACE' and 'HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T'  are the greatest songs ever written, the tinny, overcompressed production is some of the worst I have ever heard, every song seems to have been finished and then turned up so high before being released that every song has become a solid block of hissing, bombastic noise. I have never like Fall Out Boy much beyond some early singles, but this is such a step down that it honestly makes 'Raditude' look like 'Pet Sounds'. 2.0/10 

Tune-Yards - i can feel you creeping into my private life

All I can say is that I don't particularly enjoy this album, the vocal-heavy style is so saccharine yet lacking in much actual catchiness or excitement, resulting in an album that feels longer than it's runtime, and becomes quite irritating. Some of the lyrical themes about cultural appropriation also rubbed me up the wrong way, and the self-flagellating 'Colonizer' seems like it was created purely out of guilt, and comes across poorly because it is a song that apologises for using african music influences while also exhibiting them. That said, this album is at least quite unique and some of the singles are well crafted. 5.5/10 

Jpegmafia - Veteran

The strangest and most experimental album I heard in January was 'Veteran' by Jpegmafia, an album so odd that even when the songs themselves might have few memorable hooks, there are enough unique production choices that it's constantly entertaining, with keyboard clicks edited to sound like trap-inspired snares and a beat made up of what I can only describe as mouth sounds on 'Rock N Roll is Dead'. 7.7/10

Migos - Culture II

This album is not only physically difficult to get through with it's frankly shocking 1 hour 45 minute, 24 song runtime, but it feels even longer due to about half the songs being so indistinguishable and boring that I can't even remember what they sound like by looking at the track name. My first listen to this was spent mainly browsing the internet because I was so bored out my mind by about 3 in every 4 tracks. My album of the month is another long, many-tracked album, but at least it has the decency to make the songs sound different, and feels like an artistic statement rather than a cynical way to get more streams, which 'Culture II' undoubtedly is. That said, the good material here is impressive, with 'Narcos', 'Stir-Fry' and the surprisingly depressing 'Gang Gang' standing out. 4.7/10

RAT BOY - CIVIL DISORDER

Something about RAT BOY really ticks me off, his voice irritates me, how derivative of Jamie T and britpop-era Blur he is annoys me and his personality seems simultaneously uninteresting and non-genuine. CIVIL DISORDER (written in all caps of course.) is his worst project yet, from the cringing lack of self awareness of  'SLAVE TO THE SYSTEM' (maybe the most generic song about revolution since 'Edge of A Revolution' by Nickelback in 2013), to the early 2010s pop-rap chorus of 'BE MY ANIME' complete with trap-flavoured hi-hats. Urgh. 3.5/10

Craig David - The Time is Now

I'm not sure if Craig David has ever made an album that could be considered particularly good, and ''The Time Is Now' is no exception, with Craig David's buttery smooth voice making little impact over increasingly tropical-house inspired instrumentals, with the KAYTRANADA produced 'Live In the Moment' being far better than anything else here. 4.6/10

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin - ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Observe Migos, this is how to do a double album! I'm not particularly familiar with Ty Segall's work mainly because it's not on Spotify and I'm too lazy to seek it out, but after stumbling across a stream of the album on Stereogum a week before it's official release I was TOTALLY PSYCHED DUDE!! Opener 'Fanny' is a lesson in garage rock, while 'Rain' sounds like a lost Beatles track (Perhaps ironic due to the popular Beatles B-side of the same name.). There are several extended instrumental jams on both sides of the album which fall into the sweet spot of loose enough to be exciting but controlled enough not to become too alienating, demonstrated perfectly on the extended closing track 'And, Goodnight'. I'm generally not a fan of 'throwback rock' (The Black Keys for example), but this is such a fully-realised and timeless celebration of rock in it's many forms that I can't help but love it. It's not perfect - like all double albums it could probably be cut down to a single incredible disc, but the cuts made would be more painful here than on most albums of the same length. 8.8/10

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!

Top 20 songs of 2017

Now that the worst of 2017 has been washed out of my system through my 'Worst of 2017' lists, I can finally get onto the good stuff! There were loads of great songs released this year, and I had to cut this list down from about 50 tracks, so you can rest assured that these are my absolute favourites from the year.

20. Alvvays - Dreams Tonite




I'm generally indifferent to the sudden popularity of 'chill' music - I personally wish rock would get more and not less exciting - but Alvvays are by far the best thing to come out of it. 'Dreams Tonite' especially is a euphoric, relaxing headtrip that I haven't stopped coming back to since it was released.

19. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Crumbling Castle




King Gizzard released so much good stuff this year I could make a top 20 solely of their 2017 output, but this was the highlight. Sounding both cutting edge and medieval, this is a sprawling 10-minute multi-part jam that seems to incorporate aspects from the previous 3 albums King Gizz released this year into a tune that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best prog-rock songs of the decade.

18. Kendrick Lamar - YAH.




When it was released, many critics pointed out that this was Kendrick's most downtrodden, bleak album, and this is the most downtrodden, bleak song from it. The beat is so dreary you can practically feel rain pouring down onto the track, and Kendrick's sing-song flow is so defeated that this quickly became my go-to song for grey day bus rides.

17. Run The Jewels - Thursday In The Danger Room (Ft. Kamasi Washington)




Run the Jewels have built up a reputation for creating bangers, yet for the second album in a row the highlight for me has been when Killer Mike and El-P turn their talents to darker topics. 'Thursday in The Danger Room' takes the template of 'Crown' from RTJ 2 and shows why the two MCs of RTJ work together so well - they are able to bring completely different viewpoints to a concept, with the topic here being the death of a friend. El-P raps about the crippling effect of trying hard to make your last days with someone count, while killer Mike reminisces about the effect a brainless killing for a chain had on the victim's family, which is all bound together with a chilling hook.

16. Ariel Pink - Time To Live



This is definitely one of the weirdest songs on this list, sounding like a mashup between 'Video Killed The Radio Star' a distorted, power-chord filled rock song. The chanting chorus of 'Time to Live, Time for Life' sounds like the jingle of an alternate reality radio station, and all 6 minutes of this brilliant mess could only have come from Arial Pink.

15. Ryan Adams - Do You Still Love Me?




A song so good it made me care about Ryan Adams, who I had never particularly liked before, 'Do You Still Love Me' feels timeless, and I half-expected it to be a cover version when I first heard it. It's not reinventing the wheel, but it's everything you could ever want from a rock song, overdriven chords, a guitar solo and a momentous chorus. 

14. Car Seat Headrest - War Is Coming (If You Want it)




(This songs not on YouTube, so I suggest streaming it.) A song that was massively relevant in 2017 - especially since it was released the day after the Charlottesville trouble - this is the perfect summation of the gradual increase in political tensions coming to a head, and it does the admirable task of doing this without seeming preachy or biased. The music is also intriguing for Car Seat Headrest, led by bass and synthesizers more than guitars, making this as catchy as it is thoughtful.

13. Sandy (Alex G) - Proud



On the other side of indie is Sandy (Alex G), who makes folk-inspired music that takes a little while to grow on you, but when it does it becomes inescapable - hence why 'Proud' is my most streamed song of the year according to Last.fm. The melodies on this thing are unbelievably catchy, and even though Alex G's voice initially turned me off, it has enough quirks to make it memorable. In a summer where 'Despacito' seemingly reigned, this was the song I had in it's place.

12. Creeper - Black Rain



Ever since the Darkness lost relevancy, I've been waiting for the UK to produce another self-aware rock band to up the pantomime, and Creeper did it better than anyone else has for a while. With an eyeliner and leather image and a music video inside a neon church, 'Black Rain' was the edgiest I let myself get in 2017. It also helps that it has one of biggest choruses I've heard all year.

11. Remo Drive - Crash Test Racing




Almost any song form Remo Drive's first big project 'Greatest Hits' could have made this list, but 'Crash Test Racing' is my personal favourite. An emo song without any of the mockable and irritating qualities of emo (Melodramatic self-loathing, misogyny etc.), this is an airtight 2 and a half minutes filled with multiple hooks from an album that will hopefully go down as one of the best third-wave emo albums.

10. The Rentals - Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad



Weezer might have spent 2017 indulging once again in bland pop, but at least their ex-bassist Matt Sharp managed to come out of nowhere with one of the most thought-provoking, existential songs of the year. Even despite having about four great choruses, the lyrics are the highlight here, with Matt using Elon Musk as a benchmark to compare whether his own life could have been more than it was. Then at the four minute mark the song looks into the future complete with a choir - because this song also doubles as a surprisingly fitting christmas song.

9. Brockhampton - MILK



My favourite hip-hop song of year, this is an anthemic yet personal tune about isolation, pushed into greatness by the different angles the different members of Brockhampton bring to this concept. The beat is also massively emotive, complete with a chorus with lyrics that could easily fit into an emo song. Constantly interesting, melancholic and ultimately uplifting, this is a great song to show naysayers what hip-hop is capable of.

8. Jens Lekman - Evening Prayer




This song could have very easily gone completely wrong. A bright pop song with lyrics about overcoming cancer would have bombed in anyone else's hands, but Jens Lekman's soft voice and small-scale yet uplifting lyrics made this one of my most-played songs this summer. If all pop music sounded this joyful, I can guarantee the world would be a better place.

7. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream




While I was overall a little disappointed by LCD Soundsystem's newest album, the title track is still a towering achievement. James Murphy is no stranger to making subdued ballads (see 'New York I Love You But You're bringing Me Down') or emotionally-destroying yet danceable tunes (See 'Someone Great'), and 'American Dream' is a combination of both, with a crushing slow-dance synthline chorus and a dark, spitting bass over some of Murphy's bleakest lyrics. Encapsulating what it feels like to live out the supposed rockstar dream when you're well past the appropriate age, this may be depressing but it's impossible to look away, especially when it sounds this good.

5. Father John Misty - Leaving L.A



'Leaving LA' is more than just a song, it's an experiment. A 10 verse chorus-less diatribe with little instrumentation other than Josh Tillman's acoustic guitar and some strings, this was likely the moment when many listeners had enough of 'Pure Comedy', which seems to have been attacked by one half of the internet and adored by the other. The reason I'm in the latter half is exemplified by this 13-minute behemoth, because the lyrics here are astounding. Contemplating the human condition in a constantly funny and unexpected way, this song is elevated further by Tillman's self-fulfilling lyric about his 'college dude' audience leaving him because of the inaccessibility and grand themes of his newest album, showing an artist who is completely aware of his position and is willing to risk it for something greater.

5. Kirin J. Callinan ft. Alex Cameron, Jimmy Barnes and Molly Lewis - Big Enough




And now for something at the complete opposite end of the musical spectrum! Kirin J. Callinan makes music that is probably the most lovingly-made and least cynical parody of pop music that I have ever seen, and as such his songs are enjoyably insane. 'Big Enough' is the ultimate culmination of this, a western-themed call for Worldwide peace complete with an EDM drop with a euphoric scream from the legendary jimmy Barnes. I especially love the 'Dancing in the Street' style call-out of countries at the climax of the song, which adds an extra layer of glorious cheese to this beautiful creation. It was amazing to watch this become a meme.

4. The Horrors - Something To Remember Me By




Sometimes all you need is a really great chorus, and 'Something to Remember me by' delivers this in spades. I still refuse this song is nearly 7 minutes long, as every time I finish it I just want to hear it again instantly. The production is brilliantly atmospheric, with the short synth riff somehow never getting old and the layers of chords and beats swallowing the listener whole, but it's the vocals which really propel this song into my top 5. They are confident, clear and crucially withheld from the listener so that every time they come in they make the song even more exciting. I also like to imagine that the lyrics are about the Christopher Nolan film 'Memento', as they fit perfectly and add a dark edge to this magnum opus.

3. Sampha - No one Knows Me Like the Piano




This ballad by the 2017 mercury award winner is quite simply breathtaking, and this coming from someone that usually doesn't care for vocal-heavy, sentimental soul music. Sampha's breathy voice carries such a huge amount of pain and passion that it's impossible to not be transfixed by his grief, and the piano backing is built off of a memorable and delicate riff. Out of all the songs I heard this year, this is the one I believe will be remembered for the longest, and rightfully so. 

2. Lorde - Writer In the Dark


While my second-favourite song on 'Melodrama' changes daily, I knew the moment that I heard 'Writer in the Dark' it was one of the best songs of the year the moment i heard it. The lyrics are starkly visual, creating a series of images that progress in a way like few other songs. It starts off heartbroken and moves further and further towards glory until the final Kate bush-esque chorus sounds powerful as opposed to tragic, despite not having changed a note. See also: Liability

1. Alex Cameron - Runnin' Out of Luck




Does this deserve to be my song of the year? Probably not. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't by far my favourite tune of 2017. It's quite frankly a perfect pop song, sounding like straight out of the 80s but with modern-day production, and with a level of self-awareness that makes the whole thing hilarious without diminishing how great of a song it is. It's also proof that if there's anything we need in 2018, it's more saxophone outros.

Top 10 worst/most disappointing albums of 2017

Following on from my list of the top 10 worst songs of the year list, available here, here is my list for the top 10 worst and most disappointing albums of the year, split up into top 5s for both categories. Also, note that the albums in the disappointing category aren't necessarily that bad, but fell way short of my expectations for them.

Top 5 most disappointing albums of 2017

5. Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life




I actually enjoyed Wolf Alice's debut album a decent amount when it came out back in 2015 - although I didn't think it was a masterpiece as many have labelled it - and I thought they were easily the most interesting new British band to become massively popular, so I had high expectations for their follow-up. Then 'Yuk Foo' was released, a faux-punk song complete with cringe-worthy whispered verses and some awful production decisions (Such as the vocal sampling that randomly ensues halfway through the song.). The next 3 singles varied in quality but all seemed to be in completely different genres, and while the album is generally more cohesive than was suggested by these songs, they tend to be on the hazy, bland shoegaze side of things, making 'Visions of A Life' a frustrating listen.

4. Ed Sheeran - Divide



I was never a super-fan of Ed Sheeran before divide, and I actively hate 'The A Team' and 'Thinking Out Loud' at this point, but for the most part I was appreciative of a unique new voice in pop that was making some legitimately great music - 'Don't', 'Sing', 'lego House', 'Drunk' and 'I see Fire' are some of my favourite hit songs from this decade - so I was pretty let down by 'Divide'. It has one or two great songs, namely 'Castle on The Hill' and 'Supermarket Flowers' - hey, I don't mind 'Galway Girl' much either, but these moments are swallowed up by an album filled with lowlights. From the overplayed and irritating 'Shape of You' to the endless stream of dull, generic ballads: 'Perfect', 'Dive' and 'How would You Feel' all feel twice as long as they actually are. The rest of the tracklist is made up of twee nonsense ('What Do I Know?'), or the utter embarrassment of 'New Man'.

3. Weezer - Pacific Daydream




After making my top 3 best albums of the year last year, Weezer now make the opposite position. This isn't their worst album by any means, probably not even their bottom 3, but it's still for the most part bland and uninteresting. With the exception of 'QB Blitz', every song has lifeless, modern pop production that doesn't suit River's vocals or lyrics at all, but hey, this is Weezer. They'll probably have another album out next year and we can all forget about this.

2. Arcade Fire - Everything Now




This is a weird one, as I didn't really become an Arcade fire fan until after this was released. But 20 listens of 'Funeral' later and this is, in retrospect, very disappointing. Taking on the manic maximalism of the internet in an album is a great idea, but Arcade Fire's attempt at making a Sgt. Peppers style alternative band image for this project fell flat on it's face. The highs on this album - The title track and 'Put Your Money on Me' - reek of other artists (e.g ABBA), but the main problem is how bafflingly awful much of the material on here is. 'Electric Blue' just plain sounds awful, and songs like 'Peter Pan' and 'Chemistry' sound oddly wrong, with random synth and guitar noises popping up without any attempt to link these sounds into a cohesive song. It all sounds like someone trying to make 'OK Computer' and ending up with 'Trout Mask Replica'.

1. The whole music industry Ft.Gorillaz - Humanz




When Gorillaz announced a new album, I was PUMPED for it. 'Demon Days' and 'Plastic Beach' are two of the first albums I ever owned, and after taking 6 years off, surely Damon Albarn would have some great songs up his sleeve! Plus, the last Blur album in 2015 was decent, so what could go wrong? What if you release 4 singles that happen to be the best songs off a 14 track album, and have none of them being up to the same level of quality as their last album? What if you not only have multiple featured artists on every song, but have lots of them essentially dictate what each song sounds like, so the album becomes massively incohesive? What if Albarn sounds bored stiff as 2D, whenever he occasionally pops up? What if a large chunk of the songs sound (similarly to 'Everything Now') incohesive and cluttered - 'Sex Murder Party', 'Let Me Out', 'Hallelujah Money'?
I was massively let down by this, and the fact that the guestless B-Side 'Sleeping Powder' is better than every song on the main album makes me feel like 'Humanz' was little more than a way for Damon Albarn to show off his musical connections.


Top 5 worst albums of 2017

5. Chris Brown - Heartbreak on a Full Moon



It's a Two and a half hour, 45 song album and Chris Brown ain't no Stephin Merritt. The worrying trend of hip-hop/R&B albums getting longer and longer to encourage more streams taken to an excruciating extreme, this is a mess of autotune and sexism that we've come to expect from Chris Brown. This might have been number one on this list, but I can't make it through more than 20 tracks no matter how hard I try, so I technically haven't heard all of this album.

4. Taylor Swift - Reputation



More bearable in size, but less bearable in quality is Taylor Swift's 'Reputation'. Aside from the car-crash that is 'Look What you made Me Do', this is all of the worst parts of modern pop production paired with bitter, cringey lyrics. The 'concept' of having every song discuss Taylor Swift's public image is never developed in any way deeper than saying "I don't like you", and I think it's telling that this wasn't put onto streaming services and the marketing campaign had an unusually large focus on pre-orders - nobody would pay money for this after hearing it.

3. Linkin Park - One More Light



It's depressing to know that this was the last album Chester Bennington will ever make, the equivalent of if Weezer had broken up after the release of 'Raditude'. If anything, 'One More Light' is this decade's equivalent of 'Raditude', complete with guest rappers, pop-country balladry, EDM drops and what would have been the most mockable hook of the year with 'Heavy' (though that would be in pretty poor taste now.). Had Chester Bennington not died this year I would be shrugging and passing it off as a low note of a generally decent career, but his suicide just makes the album seem even more unworthy of being the last Linkin Park album.


2.The Chainsmokers - Memories... Do Not Open



The most appropriately named album of the year, this is somehow even worse than what everyone expected from the Chainsmokers. When a song as bland as 'Paris' is the best tune here you know something's wrong, but what's more worrying is that there are so many clunkers here it's difficult to pick the worst track. 'Break Up Every Night', 'My Type', 'Bloodstream' and 'Last Day Alive' are all so purely terrible they could be mistaken as the soundtrack to a musical comedy about two frat-boy DJ's who realise they can become popular off of doing nothing and yet instead make an effort to make toe-curlingly awful music.

1. AJR - The Click



Similarly to The Chainsmokers' album I find it difficult to pick the worst song on this album - every song here is equally unbearable. Obnoxious pitch shifting, Twenty-One Pilots rip-off vocals (Which manage to make Tyler Joseph's already annoying vocal style utterly unlistenable.), and music that rips off Jon Bellion, this feels like an album made specifically to appeal to fans of both artists, created by out of touch adults. The lyrics constantly sound overly defensive, with several songs addressing what the band believes the haters will say - which is ironic, since this constant insecurity becomes the most hateable aspect of the album. Well, that and the painful falsettos that ruin every song they appear within instantly. Everything else sounds like it was written to be in advert, which twee acoustic guitar that renders these songs completely worthless. Childish, annoying and painful.

Top 10 worst songs of 2017

2017 is nearly over, and it's been... Ok for music? The charts have generally been alright, with most of the worst material being bland rather than unlistenable trash, and the best stuff being legitimately great thanks to Kendrick Lamar and Lorde among others. However, underground music hasn't had an especially outstanding year, with most of the best releases of the year not even being the best releases by it's creator(s) (St. Vincent and LCD Soundsystem, for example.). But still, plenty of good stuff was released in 2017, and of course a huge amount of awful, horrible music. Here are in my opinion, the 10 worst songs of the year, from bad (number 10) to worst (number 1).

10. Train - Play That Song


Is this the most out-of-touch song of the year? Quite possibly. I've had a vendetta against Train since 'Hey Soul Sister' back in 2009, where the high pitched tinny ukelele, high pitched ear piercing vocals, and the high pitched drums and 'bass' led to one of the most headache-inducing songs of the 2000s. 'Play That Song' isn't quite as bad (if only because it hasn't been in as high rotation on the radio), but Patrick Monohan's vocals this time range from ear-piercing to a weird drunken drawl, and his lyrics are uncomfortably aimed at a teenage audience while using a lexis that's been out of date for two decades. No wonder it's been way less successful than their previous singles.

9. Kodak Black - Tunnel Vision

On the other end of the musical spectrum is this trap-flavoured monstrosity from Kodak Black. The beat isn't great to start off with, with it's awkward, jumpy synths that seem to flux in-and-out of rhythm with the beat, but the real problem is Kodak himself. The chorus is unbearable, and seems to make up more than half of the song, with the extended "nnnnnnn" sounds on the end of each bar making Kodak sound incredibly bored the whole time. When he does start spitting his lyrics range from generic to flat out awful. The music video is also laughably edgy and poorly executed.

8. Iggy Azalea - Mo Bounce


Iggy Azalea was an easy target for music critics almost as soon as she arrived on the scene with her fake accent and generally lazy production, but I never truly despised a song by her until this year. Apparently after her last single 'Team' failed spectacularly last year, Azalea has completely given up hope of getting popular off of talent and instead  just created this queasy, bass-heavy throwback to the worst music from the early 2010s, along with a borderline pornographic music video. It's hard to imagine anyone ever sitting through more than 20 seconds of this.

7. The Chainsmokers - Break Up Every Night


  I feel like I could put any song released this year by the Chainsmokers in this spot and it would be deserved, but 'Break up Every Night' takes the crap-cake due to it's central lyrics of "She wants to break up every night, then tries to f**k me back to life". Ewww.

6. Linkin Park - Battle Symphony

It's a tragedy that Chester Bennington took his own life earlier this year, and so it's a shame that nearly all of 'One More Light' was filled with bland drivel that is the definition of what it means to sell out in 2017. 'Battle Symphony' is especially bad, since it manages to rip-off one of the worst songs of 2015, Rachel Platten's 'Fight Song'. The chorus seems to have been copied word-for-word and then translated into edgy language to appeal to... seemingly very few people. The production strips any potential for bombast or energy, and it's generally a very sad note to go out on for a writer who made some classics while he was alive.

5. Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do



This is maybe the biggest mistake I've ever seen an artist this big make in the limelight in my 7 years of closely following pop music, and for several weeks after this was released it was being ridiculed by seemingly everybody, and deservedly so. At this point you've heard this, either with utter dismay or with glee, depending on your opinion of Taylor Swift, so I'll Swiftly move on.

4. Hopsin - Happy Ending


There is an official video for this travesty, but I highly recommend not seeking it out - it was so awful it was actually removed from Youtube (At least the high quality version). This song is straight-up racist and it seems to innocently gleeful about it that it's impossible not to listen to the entirety of this with your head in your hands. Hopsin is notorious for his overly serious, self-righteous tunes, but this is infinitely worse. The autotuned fake asian accented chorus (Sample lyric: "I can give you sucky sucky") and the unlistenable second verse - essentially Hopsin reciting his own erotic fanfiction - bind together to make this a laughably awful song.

3. Jake Paul & Co. - It's Everyday Bro


This was the year of eye-roll worthy Youtube diss tracks, and while it was easy to avoid nearly all of them, this song actually crossed over to the billboard hot 100. This is a totally amateur production by a bunch of irritating, arrogant bunch of overgrown children. A number of lyrics have already gone down in the Meme dictionary ("England is my City", "Selling like a God Church" and "Let me Educate ya; I ain't talkin' book", for example), and I think that's a testament to how groan-worthy this song is.

2. AJR - No Grass Today


Twenty-One Pilots have become unfairly maligned by many for their pop sensibilities and admittedly irritating fan-base, but surely even the most hardened TOP hater will give them some credit after hearing this disaster by AJR. Imagine Tyler Jospeh's stilted vocal delivery with lyrics about not smoking weed - although framed in an off-putting and overly defensive way that makes the song seem like it shouldn't exist. Now imagine the worst bridge you've ever heard EVER and you have 'No Grass Today'.

1. Fall-Out Boy - Young and Menace


I knew this was going to be the worst song of the year the moment I heard it. It's so hair-tearingly awful that not even AJR could usurp them. But hey, the first minute isn't even that bad, so how could this be the worst of the year? Well if you drift along the first minute of build-up you will get to the worst drop I have ever heard. Yes, not even the drops of '#SELFIE' or of Will.I.Am's EDM years can compare to this 40-SECOND(!!) horror show of pitch shifted screams and dubstep-leftover production that has produced the most painful, least enjoyable piece of music I have heard this year.