2017 Best Music

I think I officially stopped listening to albums this year. Once I gave up on that, listening to music became a lot easier and I was able to come up with my best-of list pretty easily.

• St. Vincent - "New York" - Masseducation (Loma Vista)
  This was my jam for the year. Beautiful and sassy.
• Rostam - "Bike Dream" - Half Light (Nonesuch)
  I've been super impressed with his post Vampire Weekend stuff. It is earnest and bombastic and really well crafted.
• The Courtneys - "Tour" - The Courtneys II (Flying Nun)
  Hits my sweet spot in terms of fuzzed out garage pop.
• Destroyer - "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood" - ken (Merge)
  Some heavy shades of When In Rome. Super catchy - some may call it derivative. I call it a throwback.
• Wax Idols - "Born Without A Mind" - Evaluate What You Tolerate! Volume 1.
  This isn't on Spotify, so I'm linking here. Cover of a 7 seconds song, that is sadly even more relevant now. Musically, I like the direction that Wax Idols is taking (moving away from the gothiness of their last two albums and bringing in more sonic density).
• (Sandy) Alex G - "Powerful Man" - Rocket (Domino)
  Weird and twangy, in a good unexpected way.
• The Mountain Goats - "We Do It Different on the West Coast" - Goths (Merge)
  A Mountain Goats song, but with a funk bassline that makes you smile. And lines like "Almost always something happening in Ohio".
• Lil Uzi Vert - "XO Tour Llif3" - Luv Is Rage 2 (Atlantic)
  The Ringer describes the anhedonia that this conjures much better than I can, so I'll just link.
• The Drums - "Blood Under My Belt" - Abysmal Thoughts (Anti)
  Synthy pop revival goodness.
• Ariwo - "Alafin" - Ariwo (MANANA)
  I kinda cheated since I only heard this song this morning. But I'm going to put this here anyway. A dubbed out afro-beatish electronic jam that is both new and old.
• Shabazz Palaces - "Eel Dreams" - Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star (Sub Pop)
  Rap is clearly going through a phase change, but its nice to see oldheads putting out stuff that updates indie-rap with some fresh soundz.
• Younger Lovers - "Ballad Of Two Stubborn Men" - Younger Brothers (Southpaw)
  I saw him live and it was the most raw, raunchy, eff-you perfomance I've seen! The record has a very different feel but still captures the lo-fi minimalist punkish aesthetic.

Here is the Spotify version, with a couple of Bonus tracks:

dreams

I've been having a ton of weird dreams lately. Well - not exactly weird - let's call them uncharacteristic. But I don't remember them anymore, which is probably for the best.