My 20 Favorite Albums of 2017

Peak TV has been a frequent term thrown around for the past few years to explain the overwhelming amount of content there is out there for consumers.  Maybe we should start talking about Peak Music as well.  The sheer amount of music available has been stressful for longer than it has been for TV, but this year in particular felt even more like there was just too much music from favorite acts and acclaimed newcomers to keep up with.  There are albums that I would have certainly gotten to in previous years, but I just couldn't this year.  Such are the concessions we must make as culture lovers in the year 2017.

If there was one narrative that dominated music -- or at least one that music critics tried to push the hardest -- it was the return of mid-2000s indie rock.  Bands like Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Dirty Projectors, Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, The National, and Wolf Parade all made albums in 2017, some after a long absence, and all with varying levels of success.  It seemed like many of these bands were even trying to reckon with their place in the current conversation.  The zeitgeist may have partially moved past this brand of indie rock, but as somebody who grew up on the stuff, it was a mostly pleasant return.

And in the mainstream, rap had another major year.  To the dismay of many purists, rap is the new pop, with the branch of "mumble rap" experiencing unprecedented radio play and streaming numbers.  Songs like Post Malone's "Rockstar" and Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Llif3" hit #1 on the Billboard charts, and it seemed like every month there was a new rap sensation of a similar vein that was capturing the ears of the wider public.  Regardless of how you feel about those songs (I'm not particularly crazy about either of the aforementioned tracks), it's nice to have rap of any classification get this kind of recognition.

So no matter which corner of the music world you chose to focus on, there was alot to chew on this year.  Let's celebrate all it had to offer.

The rules: Things are a little interesting this year.  Going by my usual criteria, the window of eligibility would be anything released between January 1, 2017 and now.  However, one of the biggest albums of this year was actually digitally released early at the very end of 2016.  So in order to still be able to recognize this record, I'm making the distinction of including things physically released in 2017.  Otherwise, everything is the same as usual.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.


Honorable Mentions (25-21)
Critics latched on to the revealing nature of 4:44, but it's also one of the most focused and cohesive Jay-Z albums in a very long time.  Who Told You To Think??!!?!?!?! is another wonderfully cerebral collection from Milo, and it features some of the best beats of the year.  Amine proved he was clearly the best from the 2017 XXL Freshman Class with Good For You, one of the most fun rap debuts of the past few years.  His last album may have been a mixed affair, but Big Boi returned to making gems on the delightfully funky Boomiverse.  The public had a kneejerk negative reaction to Taylor Swift's obnoxious but still quite good Reputation, but that's okay -- people literally threw trash at Bob Dylan when he tried something they weren't ready for too.

20. Los Campesinos! - Sick Scenes
Los Campesinos! have been gone so long that this feels like a mini band reunion.  At least by their standards, that is.  Once known for being insanely prolific, financial issues have caused the gang to slow down, resulting in the four year gap between No Blues and their latest, Sick Scenes.  There's something about hearing a band you love so much deliver new material after being gone for a while that sparks an immediate Pavlovian response.  The very first soccer reference (in the opening track, no less), that squealing guitar solo that kicks in near the end of "Sad Suppers" -- it's enough to make any fan clap with joy.  Sick Scenes continues their gradual progression into softer sounds.  They can still rage like the old days on songs like "I Broke Up in Amarante," and frontman Gareth still fits in the glum witticisms he's known for, but the album finds more space for the quiet moments that dominate "A Slow, Slow Death" and "The Fall of Home."  Who would have thought that what was once the most youthful band on the planet would transition to their mature phase so smoothly?  Let's just hope they don't keep us waiting as long for the next album.

Highlight songs
1. I Broke Up in Amarante
2. Sad Suppers
3. Hung Empty

19. Cut Copy - Haiku From Zero
One of the things that makes Cut Copy so special is that they're one of the few modern dance bands who approach their music with a rock band's sensibility.  Haiku From Zero's first single -- and best song -- "Airborne" barely features any synthesizers, instead strutting along with its disco guitar stabs, bobbing bassline, and high-mixed live drums.  Elsewhere there are synths galore, but the songs rarely use them as the driving force, treating them like decorations to the rest of the instruments' sturdy framework.  It's a formula they wield with stellar results, as the album coasts through its nine euphoric grooves.  A cursory listen might cause someone to mistake this for your standard festival fodder, but their tightness and precision is what takes them to the next level.  The hi-hats hit with perfect crispness, the bass and guitars tangle around each other so well, the songs soar at just the right moment.  Cut Copy may be a band that the zeitgeist has left behind, but they're still doing what they do better than just about anyone.

Highlight songs
1. Airborne
2. Counting Down
3. Black Rainbows

18. Young Thug - Beautiful Thugger Girls
At this point, it has become a foregone conclusion that Young Thug is going to make an appearance on these lists.  Everyone's favorite amorphous mumble rapper had another productive year, putting out more releases and feature verses than anyone could keep up with.  But for those looking for a quick primer, his best material of 2017 happened to be the one that came first.  Billed before its release as "a singing album," Beautiful Thugger Girls isn't the wild stylistic shift one would think.  After all, he still gleefully says random things like "shot him so many times he caught on fire" and makes sharp left turns with his flows mid-verse.  Instead, this is another gradual advancement of his skill tree.  He attempts a country drawl for a few bars on the opening track, adds a calypso bounce to his repertoire on "Do U Love Me?," and constantly goes to stranger corners with his melodies.  When he catches the proper wave, the album absolutely soars, as it does on the Future feature "Relationship," a song that single-handedly renders their collab album from a few months ago useless.  He's bound to slow down and hit a rut soon, but for now let's just enjoy this glorious peaking.

Highlight songs
1. Do U Love Me?
2. Relationship
3. Feel It

17. The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions
There were two major changes that happened with Canadian power pop band The New Pornographers in between albums.  The first is that drummer Kurt Dahle left the group, and the second is that weirdo troubadour Dan Bejar, for the first time ever, did not have his usual three songs to contribute when it was time record.  But otherwise, White Conditions is business as usual for The New Pornographers.  Sure, the drums aren't as attention-grabbing and the rhythm of the album could use some of Bejar's curveballs, but it's a collection of bulletproof songs nonetheless.  In many ways, it's reminiscent of the band's Electric Version, with its window-down blast of sunny power-pop songs, especially in the opening four song salvo.  Later, in the second half, the band switches things up with songs like the tropical-tinged "Colosseums" and "Juke," which has a bit of a gritty strut to it.  But overall, Whiteout Conditions sounds like what a New Pornographers album should sound like: relentlessly catchy hooks.  In a nutshell, the most reliable band in music strikes again.  It would be boring if the songs weren't so listenable.

Highlight songs
1. This is the World of the Theater
2. High Ticket Attractions
3. Juke

16. SZA - Ctrl
I went on quite the journey with Ctrl over the course of the year.  When it first came out back in June, it didn't quite click with me.  Everyone was hyping it up, but I just couldn't buy into what sounded to me like a thoroughly average R&B album.  My way in ended up being "Doves in the Wind," a terrific track that has a whiff of Erykah Badu's zoned out neo-soul and features a hypnotic Kendrick Lamar verse.  Then the rest of the album began to grow on me, to the point where I completely loved it right before the deadline for this list hit.  It's not surprising to have that kind of slow burn reaction to an album like this, because even though there are some straightforward hits like "Prom" and "Love Galore," it's mostly a record of grooves and pockets that take a little time to unearth.  But once you're on its wavelength, the rewards are remarkable.  She's got an off-kilter vocal delivery -- half-conversational, half-contortionist -- that's able to tap into unexpected melodies like the ones on "Go Gina" and "Normal Girl."  Ctrl is one that's bound to keep growing and growing; it wouldn't be surprising if its esteem is even higher a year from now.

Highlight songs
1. Go Gina
2. Broken Clocks
3. Doves in the Wind (feat. Kendrick Lamar)

15. Allison Crutchfield - Tourist in This Town
The promotion for Tourist in This Town was packaged with a devastating announcement, the official confirmation of what fans were speculating for a while: that Swearin' was no longer a band.  But a few listens to Tourist were enough to heal the wounds of any bereft Swearin' fan.  Allison Crutchfield translates her considerable talent for crafting melodies out of thin air and packing tiny details into her lyrics to her solo album, a breakup record by way of travelogue.  She offers different sonic terrain than her work in the band -- only the minute-long "The Wedding" feels like it could fit somewhere on a Swearin' record.  Instead, Tourist hops through different genres as she toys around with Southern Gospel on the beginning of "Broad Daylight," New Order pastiche on "Dean's Room," and minimalist synthpop ballads throughout the rest of the album.  It's a confident, accomplished effort that proves Crutchfield is capable of greatness all on her own.

Highlight songs
1. Mile Away
2. Expratriate
3. Chopsticks on Pots and Pans

14. Jay Som - Everybody Works
Everybody Works is one of the rare albums where every song is different, but the whole thing feels of a piece with one another.  "The Bus Song" is classic indie rock, "Remain" is a dream pop gem, "One More Time, Please" has a reggae inflection in its guitars, "1 Billion Dogs" is a ragged rocker, the list goes on.  The reason why it all works is that Melina Duterte has pure songwriting chops, so it doesn't matter which genre she bends toward because it results in success all the same.  These are all short but well-crafted numbers that have a way of punching in all the exact right places.  She's got some lyrical strength too, as she displays on album highlight "(BedHead)," a beautiful ode to stage fright.  Basically, everything works on Everybody Works.  This has only been out for nine months and it already feels like a classic.

Highlight songs
1. (BedHead)
2. Everybody Works
3. Take It

13. Destroyer - ken
Dan Bejar is in a world of his own, musically speaking.  His work under Destroyer, though it is endlessly referential to other musical works, doesn't quite sound like anything else out there.  And even though he has a very distinct and recognizable sound that carries throughout his music, none of his albums are that similar.  So it's always exciting when he releases something new, simply to see what sounds he's been playing around with in the intervening years.  His latest record, ken, found him leaving behind the yacht rock sound that dominated Kaputt and peppered Poison Season, and venturing towards a darker sound.  Moody synths abound on the record, and the songs play around more with space, employing a small range of instruments but mixing them so they sound cavernous.  And as a lyricist, Bejar remains as sharp as ever.  He vacillates between melodramatic, bleak, and funny with his aromatic lines.  Often, his words are inscrutable, but he has a way of making them feel like they mean the world.  With ken, he's created another opportunity to get lost in his idiosyncrasies, holding us over until he returns to drop another completely new but equally odd record.

Highlight songs
1. Saw You at the Hospital
2. Tinseltown Swimming in Blood
3. Cover From the Sun

12. Big Thief - Capacity
I missed the boat on Big Thief's Masterpiece last year -- getting into it right after my Best of 2016 list was released, so I made sure not to make the same mistake of sleeping on their sophomore record.  It may not have any songs that punch like "Real Love" or "Interstate," but Capacity is a refinement of the band's sound, taking all of the sharp edges of their debut and pushing them inward.  The result is a collection of songs full of smoldering intensity, a controlled demolition of heavy emotions.  Singer Adrienne Lenker is the star of the show here, her emotive voice delivering some of the best lyrics of 2017 into the listener's ears.  She's got the skill of a great prose writer, spinning out rich, evocative lines that burn the senses, telling so much from just the spark of an image, a mere glance at an emotion.  This sounds like the kind of gold-plated album of a band who has been around for a while and worked out the kinks of their sound, so it's pretty scary and thrilling that Big Thief is this locked in with only two albums under their belt.

Highlight songs
1. Black Diamonds
2. Mythological Beauty
3. Great White Shark

11. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds From Another Planet
Last year's Psychopomp was a good record, but not quite ready to be considered big league greatness.  Still, its best songs made it clear that Japanese Breakfast had the potential to reach that level.  However, it's hard to imagine anyone predicting that Soft Sounds would be as much of a leap forward as it is.  True to its name, the album reaches for stratospheric heights and successfully lands there.  Every idea that Michelle Zauner tries on here works: the winding six-minute odyssey of "Diving Woman," the Cher aping autotune on "Machinist," the sweeping key change on "Till Death."  Her last album was mostly centered around the emotions she felt in the wake of her mom dying of cancer, but here she proves that she doesn't have to be tied down to those circumstances, trying out a conceptual sci-fi narrative on "Machinist" and re-imagining an important night of her life from the perspective of an ex on "12 Steps."  It's exhilarating to hear an artist willing to follow their creative muse in the wildest directions.  The sophomore slump is common, but Soft Sounds is an absolute success of a second effort.

Highlight songs
1. Road Head
2. 12 Steps
3. Diving Woman

10. Jens Lekman - Life Will See You Now
Two years ago, Jens Lekman embarked on a project to write and release one new song every week, calling them "postcards."  It would seem like an insane endeavor for any other songwriter, but for Lekman it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.  (He ended up succeeding, by the way.)  That's because he's the kind of person who can make a good song out of anything.  Life Will See You Now, his fourth full-length collection of lovely little tunes is full of evidence supporting that notion.  There's a song that's a detailed description of a woman's perfume ("What's That Perfume That You Wear?"), a song about a time he was booked to perform at a wedding ("Wedding in Finistere"), and even a song about writer's block ("Postcard #19").  What makes these songs so great is that Lekman's the ultimate humanist.  He's able to get straight to the heart of his subjects, using odd scenarios and fine details as a lens through which he can find universal truths and poignant emotions.  He's an equally gifted composer, able to weave elements of disco, calypso, and French Riviera serenading into his songs.  Is there anything he can't do?  Over a decade into his career and we still haven't found out.

Highlight songs
1. Dandelion Seed
2. What's That Perfume That You Wear?
3. Wedding in Finistere

9. The National - Sleep Well Beast
The National feel like the quintessential adult band.  They've written songs about desk jobs, the doldrums of everyday life, and drinking wine with the precision of someone deep in the throes of a perpetual midlife crisis.  So it seems only natural that they would make an album where the primary focus is musings on marriage.  Lead singer Matt Berninger co-wrote much of Sleep Well Beast with his wife (who even gets a song named after her with "Carin at the Liquor Store"), which is fitting because it sounds like a record of talking it out with your partner, of finding a way to fight through the fog.  That essence is boiled down in one line on the chorus of "Empire Line": "Can't you find a way?  You're in this too."  Musically, the rest of the gang gets wilder than they have in recent years.  The drums bang higher in the mix, the guitars pierce and shriek.  But they still do restrained, delicately adorned music with great skill -- "Walk It Back" and "Born to Beg" are some of their best in that regard.  The National always know how to do just enough to feel fresh, but Sleep Well Beast is the most revitalized they've sounded in almost a decade.

Highlight songs
1. I'll Still Destroy You
2. Day I Die
3. Dark Side of the Gym

8. Wolf Parade - Cry Cry Cry
It may have been overshadowed in the larger indie world by LCD Soundsystem's American Dream, but to some people there was an equally major comeback this year: Wolf Parade.  Spencer Krug, Dan Boeckner, and the rest of the gang have been keeping themselves busy with many of their own projects, but there's a certain unmatched power that they tap into when they join forces.  And Cry Cry Cry shows that they haven't lost a step in their time away from each other.  Krug still has his manic carnival barker energy, as exhibited on "Who Are Ya."  Dan still knows his way around a charging rocker like "You're Dreaming."  And everywhere else, the band recaptures their old magic, making songs that crash around but sound extremely locked in at all times.  Here, though, they add a little dark portent to songs like "Lazarus Online," perhaps as a response to the current times.  No matter the outside circumstances, this album is a cause for celebration.  Who would have thought we would get another Wolf Parade record, let alone that it would sound this good?

Highlight songs
1. Baby Blue
2. Valley Boy
3. Flies on the Sun

7. Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory
Given that the world might end at any second, it's so generous of Vince Staples to tell us what the future would sound like if he had any say in it.  Big Fish Theory abandons the dank, No I.D.-heavy sound of Summertime '06 for a sonic palette that takes on shades of house and Detroit techno.  No matter what genres he's working with, Staples always finds a way to churn out bangers.  The clattering "Yeah Right" is the team-up of the year, featuring the best Kendrick Lamar guest verse in a year full of great ones, while "745" rides a bassline so deep you'll feel it in your teeth.  Nor has he lost his touch for sharp lyrics, indulging in little of the humor you'll see on his Twitter page, but offering up tangled lines about racial disparity, street-level woes, and suicidal thoughts.  Vince Staples seems to exist completely outside of the current rap paradigm, and hearing him play around and evolve in his own little sandbox is a total thrill.

Highlight songs
1. 745
2. Yeah Right (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
3. BagBak

6. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up
To hear Robin Pecknold tell the story of Crack-Up, Fleet Foxes' return to music after six years away, it's an album that's very much a reaction to the world around him.  But to listen to the album itself is a wholly internal experience, as if exhuming something nested deeply in the caverns of Pecknold's own mind.  The signifiers of the band are there -- honeyed harmonies, crystal clear production, ornate instrumentation -- but they're packed into a denser, more elusive framework.  A melody will reveal itself tucked away in the crevice of a track.  Songs group into towering suites (the nine minute-long "Third of May / Odaigahara," for example) which alternate with haunted ballads.  Even the album's most catchy and traditionally gorgeous song "On Another Ocean (January / June)" only gets to the fireworks factory after a helping of atmospheric wandering.  But when it all snaps into place, Crack-Up is a record that elicits a nirvana of the purest form.  These may be puzzles, as Stereogum critic Tom Breihan described in his negative review of the album, but what a joy they are to solve.

Highlight songs
1. On Another Ocean (January / June)
2. Mearcstapa
3. - Naiads, Cassadies

5. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3
Killer Mike and El-P made things difficult for list-makers.  They decided to drop the third installment of their super duo trilogy online earlier than expected at the end of 2016, long after every publication released their Best of the Year lists.  However, the physical release was in 2017, so it still counts as an album that was released this year.  Either way, it would be a shame not to discuss a record so terrific and vital.  RTJ3 may not be as much of a blitzkrieg as its predecessor, but it rages in its own way.  It feels like their most fiercely political record, with all of its talk of police brutality, Black Lives Matter protests, and not-so-thinly veiled jabs at Trump.  But its message doesn't get in the way of the music, which is just as head-knocking as always.  The two of them trade off a flurry of potent tough-talking rhymes, corral wonderful guests like Danny Brown, and have a blast doing it, all while stomping over beats that sound like a world gone wrong and sputtering into chaos.  El-P puts it best on the album when he says "Fear's been the law for so long that rage feels like therapy."  Maybe that's why Run the Jewels 3 felt good to have as a companion in this hellscape of a year.

Highlight songs
1. Legend Has It
2. Everybody Stay Calm
3. Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)

4. Lorde - Melodrama
When Lorde arrived on the scene with Pure Heroine, she talked about teen life with a wit and wisdom beyond her years, so I guess we shouldn't have been surprised by her transitioning so well into adulthood.  That's what Melodrama is, something like a Dante's Inferno of the heart.  It's about stumbling through drunken nights and heartbreak and coming out of the other side better and wiser.  This isn't the first list on which Lorde has appeared very high, which has led skeptics to wonder what makes this rise above the level of a "really good pop album."  It's that this is the kind of record where every single detail feels meticulously thought over and intentional.  There's a vivid and tactile sense to it, you can feel every atom of lines like "our days and nights are perfumed with obsession."  And yet it's so wild and spontaneous and alive as well.  Melodrama doesn't just transcend the notion of being a really good pop, it feels like one of the defining records of a generation.

Highlight songs
1. Homemade Dynamite
2. Perfect Places
3. The Louvre

3. Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm
At this point, there is no new angle to take on the breakup album, so if you're going to do one, you just have to make sure to do it well.  Katie Crutchfield earns the right to tread on worn terrain on her superb fourth album, Out in the Storm, which serves as a full excavation of a breakup.  Crutchfield has always had an ability to put a magnifying glass to the most intimate emotions, and her rawness feels even more potent when honed in on a single subject.  She can turn a brutal eye towards the first red flag of a relationship, describing her lover's tendency for "narcissistic injury disguised as masterpiece."  But she can also trace the first moments of being electrified by the feeling of freedom after a break-up, as she does on "Sparks Fly."  And this time she scrapes her guts out on songs that feature some big league production from John Agnello, who finally maximizes the 90s alt-rock influences she's toyed with her whole career.  "Silver" and "Never Been Wrong" are gleaming rock songs that pack a punch to match her gaping-wound emotions.  Katie Crutchfield is one of the greatest songwriters working today, and the excellent Out in the Storm only serves to reaffirm that notion.

Highlight songs
1. Recite Remorse
2. Silver
3. 8 Ball

2. Alvvays - Antisocialites
"Archie Marry Me," the first single from Alvvays' wonderful self-titled debut album, got "indie big" -- not quite Billboard Top 40, but it was ubiquitous enough on soundtracks and college radio stations that they could've easily become known as that band who made that one song.  Their sophomore effort Antisocialites solidifies what anyone who listened to the rest of the band's debut already knew: Alvvays are more than a one-hit wonder.  On this album, they spin up 10 razor-sharp songs of indie pop perfection.  With cleaner production, the band pushes the boundaries of their sound in all quadrants.  There's the usual melancholic bliss of songs like "In Undertow" and "Dreams Tonite," but they also try out a new wave-motorik hybrid on "Hey," pogoing bubblegum pop on "Lollipop (Ode to Jim)," and even a modern day splatter platter on "Already Gone."  What has always elevated them past just being catchy confection is lead singer Molly Rankin's wry writing.  She speaks of getting high to make it through a dreadful outing with the clever "Alter my state to get through this date" line.  "What's left of you and me?  You respond to my question metaphorically" she quips elsewhere, detailing a dying relationship.  Like the whole album itself, it's enough to elicit a gloomy sigh and a gigantic grin all at the same time.

Highlight songs
1. Lollipop (Ode to Jim)
2. In Undertow
3. Dreams Tonite

1. Charly Bliss - Guppy
In preparation for making this list every year, I relisten to all of the albums that are in contention in order to reacquaint myself with the specifics of how I feel about them.  This year, I experienced some difficulty.  That's because every time I would attempt to listen to another record, I'd just return back to Guppy, the debut album from Brooklyn band Charly Bliss.  There's just nothing else that can match up to its exuberance, catchiness, and surprising emotional depth.  This band and album are a "love it or hate it" thing for a number of reasons: lead vocalist Eva Hendricks' high-pitched squeak of a voice, their self-proclaimed "bubblegum grunge" sound, the general vibe of hyper-youthfulness that their music gives off.  But for those who love it like I do, Guppy offers a deeply engrossing experience, the kind of instant classic comfort music that people can return to for the rest of their lives and be transported back to a very specific time period and set of emotions.  When the weapons-grade guitars of "Glitter" hit, or when that ode-to-therapy chorus of "Ruby" comes around, or when Hendricks sings "I smell your Chapstick on the talkback," something just feels right.  It feels like I've been waiting my whole life for this album and just didn't know it.

Highlight songs
1. Glitter
2. Gatorade
3. Scare U


Well, that wraps things up for my best albums of 2017 list.  I love reading other lists, so feel free to share yours in the comments.  Or if you want to share your thoughts on my list, then you can do that too!  Most of the highlight songs contain Youtube links if you want to listen to them, but I've also created a Spotify playlist if that's your preferred method.  You can find it below.  And if you want a complete ranking of all the albums that were in consideration for this list, you can find them HERE.



Previous lists
2016
2015
2014
2013