10) The National - Sleep Well Beast
The National has been a favorite of mine since stumbling onto a performance of 'Fake Empire' on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2007. Sleep Well Beast feels simultaneously more subdued and more synth-heavy than the previous albums Trouble Will Find Me and High Violet but still an album filled with beautiful melodies to accompany Matt Berninger's baritone vocal. 'Day I Die' and 'The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness' standout as my personal favorites on the album.
Listen to Day I Die
Listen to Day I Die
9) Propagandhi - Victory Lap
Propagandhi has been one of my favorite bands for over 20 years. While most of the punk music I used to enjoy in my teens seems dated, Propagandhi's musicianship and lyrical messages seem more current and relevant than ever. Victory Lap is unmistakably a Propagandhi album but it doesn't at any point feel redundant.
Listen to Adventures in Zoochosis
8) Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Villains continues where Queens of the Stone Age left off with ...Like Clockwork which is to me that high watermark for the band. Villains is more straight forward rock and continues to showcase the tremendous musicianship of one of the more talented rock bands of the last two decades. About two minutes into of the opening track 'Feet Don't Fail Me', the song kicks into gear and the album doesn't relent from that moment.
Listen to The Evil Has Landed
7) Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
I'm not sure there's another artist out there who can release a track like 'The Heart Part 4' as just an audio trailer to their album. Just weeks before the release of DAMN. and his headlining Coachella performances, Kendrick Lamar had thrown down the gauntlet. In addition to huge hits like 'DNA.' and 'HUMBLE.' he expanded his artistic horizons with tracks like my personal favorite 'PRIDE.'. As we know, what is good is not always popular and vice versa but Kendrick Lamar is where those intersect as DAMN. ended the year as the number one selling album of the year.
Listen to PRIDE.
6) Beck - Colors
I've been a fan of Beck since playing out my compact disc of Odelay about 20 years ago. Not every album Beck has released has connected with me but I've always appreciated that he doesn't seem to go to the same well for every album. In 2014, he released Morning Phase which was more of a mellow atmospheric record in the vein of Sea Change. I really enjoyed Morning Phase which made my list of favorite albums from 2014 and I even won a couple bucks for me when it pulled off the upset of winning Album of the Year at the Grammys. That said, when Beck released 'Dreams' in 2015, I was ready for another Beck pop album. Colors delivered what I was hoping for and then some.
Listen to Up All Night
5) White Sea - Tropical Odds
After parting ways with M83, I was interested to see what Morgan Kibby who do next and she let the anticipation build while working on her second solo album under the moniker White Sea. The first two singles 'Stay Young, Get Stoned' and 'Never A Woman' were first released way back in 2015 and are both pure pop anthems. I would search Google on a regular basis for "White Sea new album" and then sometime in May the wait was finally over as Tropical Odds was finally released. Tropical Odds is 42 minutes of pure pop bliss and it deserves to be celebrated as such.
Listen to Never A Woman
4) The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
I knew of The War on Drugs before this year and their strange feud with Sun Kil Moon but had never given them a long listen. Which caused me to pleasantly surprised when I finally checked out A Deeper Understanding. This is the epitome of an album that grows on you with each listen and over the past several months my favorite track has changed a few times which is always the earmark of a great album in my experience.
Listen to In Chains
3) The xx - I See You
It's easy to be forgotten in year end lists when the album comes out in early January but I See You by The xx stayed with me the entire year. The first single 'On Hold' was released in late 2016 and set the bar very high. From the first notes of the opening track 'Dangerous', it's obvious that I See You has a greater energy than the previous two releases but still maintains the sultry vibe from that made their first two albums so intriguing.
Listen to On Hold
2) Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins
I was introduced to Grizzly Bear a short time before seeing them live at Lollapalooza in 2008. It was a remarkable live performance that made me think it must have been what it was like to see The Beach Boys live melodies during their heyday. I've been a fan ever since that performance and after five years between albums, they released their latest masterpiece Painted Ruins. There are no weak links but like with most great albums the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and with each listen every part feels more indispensable.
Listen to Three Rings
It starts with a very unassuming four piano notes and spoken lyrics from Brent Knopf (formerly of Menomena). The album continues to build from that point hitting some really great heights with songs 'Which Side Are You On' and 'In the Wake' but it's a full album more than a collection of songs. In a beautiful piece of symmetry, Knopf crafted the album so that the very end of the last track segues perfectly into the opening track- hence the coils or continuous loop. As the year wore on, Coils was the album that I found myself going back to again and again.
Listen to Which Side Are You On
Honorable mention:
Bing & Ruth - No Home of the Mind
Brand New - Science Fiction
Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder
Day Wave - The Days We Had
Future Islands - The Far Field
Hammock - Mysterium
Hippo Campus - Landmark
Mew - Visuals
Minus The Bear - VOIDS
Mogwai - Every Country's Sun
Oso Oso - The Yunahon Mixtape
Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark?
Spoon - Hot Thoughts
Stars - There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light
