This may not be the best read, especially if you're under 18, so if you are just pretend that you didn't see it.
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
Mood: desperate, honestIt may be a bit weird to start off a personal best-of list with an album that isn't even from this century. It might also be a bit weird that I was introduced to this album in the beginning of the year, through an interview with Questlove, drummer of the hip hop band The Roots, and music historian.
Questlove's appreciation of this album came from a conscious effort of his to try and understand some classic albums. When he first heard this album he didn't like it at all. He didn't understand it. But he took time to try and put the album in its proper context. Trying to understand it from the perspective of someone living through the decline of New Jersey—with industry declining and taking the blue collar jobs with it.
Recorded in Springsteen's home studio, the fidelity is low. There's loud tape hiss throughout, unbalanced levels, and an amazing amount of authenticity. It's barely more than a guitar, a harmonica and Springsteen's vocals. There's nothing fake, nothing manufactured. Just a pure window into his soul.
The demo Springsteen recorded was taken to the studio to be rerecorded, polished, commercialized and sold. For context, this was two years before his huge hit album Born to Run. But once they started re-recording the album they realized that nothing could compare to the heartfelt feel of the original tapes. Instead they cleaned those up a bit and released it as-is.
It's not just an appreciation for understanding the context of what you're trying to understand—whether it's music, art, people, or relationships. I also learned that sometimes it's best to appreciate people in their raw form. Take away all the flowery language, filters and walls that they put up and just listen. It might not always be pretty, but you can get amazing insight into someone's heart.
Phosphorescent - Muchacho
Mood: country, heartbroken, yet spiritualA country album—complete with steel guitar and fiddle-laden songs of heartbreak, sung by a man who sings like he could be two steps away from downing a bottle of Nyquil and dropping into the bottom of a lake doesn't exactly sound like an album that I'd want to hear. But there's more to it than that.
After the gorgeous choral introduction, the that spirituality remains throughout the rest of the album. There is pain and heartbreak, but in a way it's almost liberating. It's almost as if the process of experiencing the pain and heartbreak is allowing the singer to release himself from it, to move beyond it, and to open himself up to something much bigger than it.
Despite the depressing elements used to paint the picture, there is a beauty and optimism that transcends the pain.
Kurt Vile - Walkin on a Pretty Daze
Mood: smoky 70s rock loungeThis brings me back to a time before I even really remembered all that well. I was a very small child at a family friend's cottage, playing alone with building blocks, while the family friends were next door in a hazy, smoke-filled room listening to rock music. Where their hazy memories may have had to do with the smoke in the air, mine have been distorted with time and actually growing up.
It's almost as familiar as it is foreign. It's like the first time I heard Pink Floyd or the Eagles as a teenager, or the first time I caught a whiff of that haze when I walked into my first rave. My first experience with both since I was that three-year-old at the cottage. I suppose you could summarize it as being nostalgic.
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Mood: digital funk partyThere's not much that I can say about this album anymore. Best Daft Punk album since Homework. Third favourite album of the year. There are really no low points. It's super well polished. Although the polish and the shine may have something to do with its third-place. I listened to it obsessively for the first month after it came out, and then it was over. Stark contrast to the first album on this list. I don't imagine myself pulling it out of the crate (so to speak) five years from now to reminisce.
Disclosure - Settle
Mood: strictly to shake your assBest album intro of the year! It starts off on an absolutely storming note—it's almost impossible to stay still. Pushing against the deep house trend, without taking anything away from it, most tracks are vocal-focused and hard as hell.
This is some banging house music with some character.
Moderat - II
Jon Hopkins - Immunity
Moods: epic journeys into parts unknownIt's harder to write a personal review of why these albums are so great, especially when they lose touch with reality. The others I might be able to relate to on a personal level, but these are good precicely because I can't relate them to my real life. They're what I listen to when I'm working out or writing code. Banging out repetitive tasks while my mind gets lost in another world.
There are tracks like Jon Hopkins' Open Eye Signal that start off feeling like you're walking down a flowing stream. The water level and pressure is building, almost imperceptably, forcing you to move a little quicker. It builds past your waist, up to your chest, getting stronger and more intense until you can't feel your feet touching the bottom anymore. You're still walking, but your feet aren't touching. You're stlil moving forward, but completely out of control. It takes you somewhere you never would have expected—somewhere you never would have gone on your own, and it's fucking amazing!
Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
Haim - Days Are Gone
Moods: uncomplicated, happy, fun popThese are exactly what pop music should be. There's not much I can say about them really. They just sound good. They feel good. Happy, simple and accessible. This is probably the first year I've actually been able to enjoy music like this. It's actually done really well.
Blood Orange - Cupid Deluxe
Mood: Times Square in the 80sThis is just awesome. There is a great story behind it, which you should just read over at Pitchfork.
Lorde - Pure Heroine
Mood: you know it better than I doI totally slept on this when it came out. It was suggested by my partner-in-music Chantel, so I dismissed it as some kind of radio-friendly version of Lana del Rey. Was I ever wrong. I’ve only started listening to this the last couple weeks, so you probably know more about this already. Fucking awesome.
Jesse Lanza - Pull My Hair Back
Mood: sexy, synthy and soulfulBlurring the lines between R&B, nu jazz, retro 80s, boogie, and soul, Hamilton native Jesse Lanza’s album is so sexy I want to dry hump it in the backseat of a minivan.
Kelela - Cut 4 Me
Mood: Brandy and Aliyah on mollyKiller production, gorgeous vocals. Her quote best summarizes her album: "I would like to do Brandy but weirder… Something that would resonate with most people, but make them feel a little uncomfortable."
Tinashe - Black Water
Mood: even deeper into the weird than Kelela
I wouldn’t even include this album in the list if it weren’t for the one track Vulnerable ft. Travi$ Scott. Huge influences from my number two rated album of the year, in fact you could almost entitle this On Sight part ii. This track deserves a huge listen.
When I realized Rhye is a electronic duo comprised of a Canadian man and a Dutch man, I felt like one of those times we've all experienced, where you’ve just realized you’ve fallen in love with a tranny. I could have sworn Rhye was the daughter of Sade, with the most gorgeous, lush, whispy and delicate vocals. It probably is the sweetest, most sensual, beautiful musical expression of an intimate experience possible. If Jesse Lanza made me want to dry hump, this album made me want to light candles and gaze into its eyes, truly believing in my heart that this feeling will never end. Two men have never been this successful at getting my pants off.
This is the album that made me realize that hip hop isn’t as much about crime and violence. It looks like all the biggest rappers have hung up their TEK-9s and picked up some serious pill habits. Needless to say, this means I love hip hop again. I fucking hate gangster shit. At least when these guys get on drugs there is some creative output. There was a hint of that on Q-Tip’s 1999 album Amplified, but where that was hidden just under the surface (you kinda had to be doing it to know he was doing it too), this is right up front and blatant. Disgusting. And awesome.
This would so have been album of the year if it weren’t for the next. If you do nothing else with this album, download it, put it away, and listen to it in five years. Maybe you’ll understand it by then, because this is album is going to continue to influence for years. Bar none this is the most influential, groundbreaking album of the year. There’s not much else I can say that hasn’t been said about this album.
Don’t fall back to the College Dropout-esque track Bound 2. There’s so much gold here. The four Daft Punk produced tracks are dirtier and better than anything they've done on their own. The TNGHT produced Blood on the Leaves is fucking epic.
Album of the year. Nothing describes as well the post-rave, drug-fuelled, escapist, desperate, bankrupt, depressed party scene of which Detroit is at the epicentre. This is the future. It came from blues and gospel to feel-good soulful Motown to utopian futurist techno to gritty, hardcore hip hop. Fucking Detroit. Once you understand the context that this album was created under it really changes your perception of it.
If you have twenty minutes to kill, watch the documentary above, Detroit State of Mind. There’s one scene where Danny is being interviewed before he plays a fundraiser concert for (the greatest hip hop producer ever) J Dilla’s family. The interviewer asks him what his connection to Dilla is, and he scoffs and says that he has nothing to do with Dilla’s music. He goes on to say (paraphrasing) “what Dilla did for soul and R&B, and how that influenced him and his music, that’s what I am, but growing up with house and techno.”
Danny Brown is going to kill himself—he’s crazy and he does more drugs than anyone else. Appreciate his music while you still can.
What the 80s would have sounded like if they came after house music.
The Head and the Heart - Let’s Be Still
The perfect cure for either type of hangover—Lindsay Lohan’s or Donna Summer’s. Heartwarming folky goodness. My partner-in-music fell in love at the first song.
Major Lazer - Free the Universe
Hella fun Brazilian/dancehall/electronic vibes. Haven’t spent enough time with this yet.
Jay Z - Magna Carta Holy Grail
First time I actually liked this cat. Not a bad album at all.
Justin Timberlake - 20/20 Experience
Yeah, so what? It’s a good album.
James Blake - Overgrown
A melancholic, lush production. As gorgeous as it is full of despair.
I wouldn’t even include this album in the list if it weren’t for the one track Vulnerable ft. Travi$ Scott. Huge influences from my number two rated album of the year, in fact you could almost entitle this On Sight part ii. This track deserves a huge listen.
Rhye - Woman
Mood: I’m naked right nowWhen I realized Rhye is a electronic duo comprised of a Canadian man and a Dutch man, I felt like one of those times we've all experienced, where you’ve just realized you’ve fallen in love with a tranny. I could have sworn Rhye was the daughter of Sade, with the most gorgeous, lush, whispy and delicate vocals. It probably is the sweetest, most sensual, beautiful musical expression of an intimate experience possible. If Jesse Lanza made me want to dry hump, this album made me want to light candles and gaze into its eyes, truly believing in my heart that this feeling will never end. Two men have never been this successful at getting my pants off.
Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap
Mood: eccentric hip hopThis is the album that made me realize that hip hop isn’t as much about crime and violence. It looks like all the biggest rappers have hung up their TEK-9s and picked up some serious pill habits. Needless to say, this means I love hip hop again. I fucking hate gangster shit. At least when these guys get on drugs there is some creative output. There was a hint of that on Q-Tip’s 1999 album Amplified, but where that was hidden just under the surface (you kinda had to be doing it to know he was doing it too), this is right up front and blatant. Disgusting. And awesome.
Kanye West - Yeezus
Mood: I’m a do the fuck I want, prove I’m crazy, and I’m still going to turn the world on its headThis would so have been album of the year if it weren’t for the next. If you do nothing else with this album, download it, put it away, and listen to it in five years. Maybe you’ll understand it by then, because this is album is going to continue to influence for years. Bar none this is the most influential, groundbreaking album of the year. There’s not much else I can say that hasn’t been said about this album.
Don’t fall back to the College Dropout-esque track Bound 2. There’s so much gold here. The four Daft Punk produced tracks are dirtier and better than anything they've done on their own. The TNGHT produced Blood on the Leaves is fucking epic.
Danny Brown - Old
Mood: desperate, honest, escapistAlbum of the year. Nothing describes as well the post-rave, drug-fuelled, escapist, desperate, bankrupt, depressed party scene of which Detroit is at the epicentre. This is the future. It came from blues and gospel to feel-good soulful Motown to utopian futurist techno to gritty, hardcore hip hop. Fucking Detroit. Once you understand the context that this album was created under it really changes your perception of it.
If you have twenty minutes to kill, watch the documentary above, Detroit State of Mind. There’s one scene where Danny is being interviewed before he plays a fundraiser concert for (the greatest hip hop producer ever) J Dilla’s family. The interviewer asks him what his connection to Dilla is, and he scoffs and says that he has nothing to do with Dilla’s music. He goes on to say (paraphrasing) “what Dilla did for soul and R&B, and how that influenced him and his music, that’s what I am, but growing up with house and techno.”
Danny Brown is going to kill himself—he’s crazy and he does more drugs than anyone else. Appreciate his music while you still can.
Honourable mentions:
Holy Ghost - DynamicsWhat the 80s would have sounded like if they came after house music.
The Head and the Heart - Let’s Be Still
The perfect cure for either type of hangover—Lindsay Lohan’s or Donna Summer’s. Heartwarming folky goodness. My partner-in-music fell in love at the first song.
Major Lazer - Free the Universe
Hella fun Brazilian/dancehall/electronic vibes. Haven’t spent enough time with this yet.
Jay Z - Magna Carta Holy Grail
First time I actually liked this cat. Not a bad album at all.
Justin Timberlake - 20/20 Experience
Yeah, so what? It’s a good album.
James Blake - Overgrown
A melancholic, lush production. As gorgeous as it is full of despair.
