Top Ten Albums of 2017 (SPIN)

SPIN is a good magazine for music nerds, not quite as fartsniffingly obnoxious as Pitchfork, but definitely more current and grimy than Rolling Stone (who probably put U2 as their 1st, 3rd, and 4th best albums of the year).  When I was in high school I had a subscription to the paper magazine for Spin and really enjoyed it.  I wonder if they even publish a physical magazine anymore...

So, they did a top 50 albums of the year thing, which you can see in total here, but I am only going to discuss the top ten.

10.  Moses Sumney - Aromanticism.
Reminds me of the Thundercat album, except without all the amazing bass-work, kind of ambient R&B built on falsettos and harmonies.  Nice enough, but not really my type of music.  According to the SPIN review, aromanticism is the inability to reciprocate romantic feelings.  Which is depressing as hell.  Welcome to 2017!

9. Julie Byrne - Not Even Happiness.
Oh, hey, that is flipping beautiful.  This is richly lovely folky beauty.  Very spare, very chilled, but straight up beautiful.  I've just restarted it for the fifth time, seriously nice.

8. Paramore - After Laughter.
This is a good album.  I liked it when I listened to it a while back.  But top ten for the year?  Nah.

7. Alice Coltrane - World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
I mean, come the hell on, man.  You are really picking an album of weird chanting shit to be the #7 album of the year?  The review describes this as "mixing traditional Vedic chant with the gospel of her Detroit upbringing and the ostensibly secular jazz she’d been making in the previous decades."  I guess if you are in to monk tunes, then this is the jam.  But for the 99.99% of the world who isn't, then WTF.  And these tunes are looooooooong.  The album is only an hour long, but each song feels like it somehow takes three hours to complete.

6. Jlin - Black Origami.
I just gave this one a shot, and I guess it is kind of cool, but also WTF?  This style of music is apparently called "footwork," which is apparently frenetically-paced electronic sounds and beats going crazy on your ears.  Aspects of world music in here, but no real lyrics, and no real dance-able-ness in the electronics.  Kind of stressful.  I don't get it.  I've been really hoping that this album would end for a while now.  The SPIN writer said this is the most satisfying thing since some old Aphex Twin album, and I can't listen to Aphex Twin, so there you have it.

5. The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding.
This is a very good album.  It didn't make my top ten, but it came close, and I enjoy it very much.  My review.  If you are in to classic rock, then go there.

4. Lorde - Melodrama.
I actively dislike this album.  It is probably fine, but since she had such a strong debut, this weaksauce is just that much more weak.  The Spin review says: "The brilliance of Lorde’s sophomore album is in its efficiencies."  Ugh.  The SPIN review calls out "The Louvre" as the best pop song of the year, so I've gone back to that one for a few more tries.  I mean, what is a great pop song?  Shouldn't a pop song, at its base, have a good tune, beat,or rhythm that makes you want to dance or bounce or something?  This one is just an ominous synth thing with some spare drums, and Lorde repeatedly telling us to "broadcast the boom boom boom and make them all dance to it" in an offhand spoken "chorus."  This is not a good pop song.

3. Sza - Ctrl.
Yeah, this is OK.  Never heard it before now, but it is pretty cool alternative R&B stuff.  Still, not my sort of music, so I wouldn't keep it around, but I've been through three times now and its fine.

2. Big Thief - Capacity.
I had forgotten about this band.  I reviewed their last album and listened to their Tiny Desk and I liked it.  This is another nice sounding indie album with soft, tender female vocals.  The tunes kind of remind me of Kurt Vile or Real Estate, but then the vocals are very different from those.  Very understated feel.  Wouldn't make my top ten, personally, but I have kept listening to it over and over for the past two days.

1. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
Yeah, this is probably the best rap album of the year.  Very solid, and I already talked about it a lot.  Not as good, in my opinion, as his last two studio albums, but still very good lyrically and beat-wise.  Fine choice for #1.


Just going to note right here that the new Beck, the new Queens of the Stone Age, and the new Arcade Fire did not make SPIN's top 50 albums.  But the new Jay-Z, the new Taylor Swift, Future's HDRXX, and Drake's More Life all made it in there.  So, screw this list.