A tense time, a sad time, a time with a few breaks from the sad tension...
We did go to Universal Studios and the Simpsons area they have there. That was great. And we went to Germany, which was legendarily great. In January, we took a short vacation to Florida and an even shorter two-night cruise to the Bahamas. It was on that cruise ship when we found out that David Bowie had died.
And that just kind of kicked off the year that would be 2016.
Blackstar by Bowie is about as great a swan song as any artist has delivered. It has the sounds of a restless artist putting everything out there in a final purge of energy. A scream, not a sigh. Jazz and industrial and rock and whatever words you use when you describe Bowie's career in full. It's all there. And yet, there was probably more in there lost to the afterlife. The last song is called "I Can't Give Everything Away." Even so, he gave more than most any artist in our lives. I can't say enough even though I've said nothing. Bowie.
David Bowie "I Can't Give Everything Away"
Iggy Pop recorded an album with Josh Homme called Post Pop Depression. It was great and inventive and I spent much of the year worrying he would join his compatriots in the afterlife. Especially since last time I saw him live (I can't believe I have seen him three times!) he talked a bit about probably not being much longer for this world. But he continues. And Post Pop Depression is an awesome album. But even that album title!
Savages are a kind of direct descendent of Iggy Pop's post punk innovations, and their second album Adore Life is super engaging and makes me want to go to 1979 in Germany or something.
I feel like people didn't freak out enough about Emily's D+Evolution by Esperanza Spalding. I know it got some rave reviews, which was why I decided to give it a shot when it eventually hit the $5 bin. But I just finally listened to it now and wow. This is so much. It's funky, it's post punk, it's so much in addition to the "jazz" label. Not that jazz has limitations. But as much as I heard she was branching out or whatever, I did not expect this. I need to listen to it more times.
Freetown Sound by Blood Orange was another great singular vision of high creativity. Usually something with as many guests as this would feel a bit scattered, but this was a clear statement and so of the times in 2016 (and today, it's only 2 years later after all, things don't change that fast...).
Another respite from the challenges of living in 2016 was Welcome the Worms by Bleached. Pop punk in the true sense of the word is the catchiest music to me. And no song was in my head in 2016 as much as "Wednesday Night Melody."
Bleached "Wednesday Night Melody"
And back to sadness of losing great artists. Do I write about Charles Bradley here? He lived until 2017 which puts him outside the class of 2016, but he put out his final album Changes that year and it was really something. Screaming eagle indeed, his voice was unrivaled in its passion.
Perhaps my favorite album of 2016 (there were two frontrunners and I'm going to go ahead and exercise my right to not pick a #1) was created by someone who is fortunately still around, but an exploration of loss in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. I'm speaking of Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Every song on the album gives me deep feelings of love, loss, dread, and a little bit of hope. It is a masterwork. If Cave were someone besides Nick Cave, it would be a career defining album. But his catalog is so vast and incredible that I can't even attempt to quantify that. But in a year like 2016, this was (potentially tied for) the greatest thing an artist could release.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Girl in Amber"
Leonard Cohen had already teased the idea of dying when he was promoting You Want It Darker, but it was still a shock when he departed shortly after its release. But he went in the way of Johnny Cash, with a string of late career masterpieces on the way out (only Cohen stuck with original compositions the whole way through). You Want It Darker was everything you want from the master. Funny, reflective, intelligent, and yes, darker.
Hip hop in 2016 was kind of amazing. To briefly shift gears from the people we lost in 2016, there were great hip hop albums by Chance the Rapper, Aesop Rock, and De La Soul. Particularly De La Soul. ...And The Anonymous Nobody was a great comeback/re-introduction/modernization of a classic crew.
And then there was Danny Brown. Atrocity Exhibition is an album that I hesitate to call a hip hop album because to my ears the only thing that makes it hip hop is the rapping. The music itself is a combination of post punk and industrial and electronic and all sorts of influences.
And Run The Jewels, that's always good. RTJ3 came out on Christmas or something like that, so it basically counts as 2016.
But of course the other best album of 2016 was a reunion and a farewell and a wake for a fallen artist. Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest left this world but not before recording We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service. Furious but hopeful, pushing boundaries in a way that evokes their classic 90s output while still sounding fresh, it's almost like a debut album in how much energy and purpose it has. This is not the album 2016 deserves, but it's the album we need after a year like 2016.
A Tribe Called Quest "We The People"
And I also have to mention...
Prince. Technically no 2016 music so all I can say is thank you for your service.
Sharon Jones. (She had a posthumous 2017 album though, so we'll talk about her next time)
Other Things:
- The Falcon - Gather Up The Chaps. The kind of sort of maturity of the latest Lawrence Arms album kind of sort of reflects onto this album but also not. I like The Falcon.
- Open Mike Eagle - Hella Personal Film Festival. Continuing to evolve and be great.
- ANOHNI sang a lot about drones and death and destruction on Hopelessness. A beautiful and sad album reminding us that Obama was still deeply flawed, which can be a hard thing to fathom now in 2018.
- Midwest Farmer's Daughter by Margo Price is beautiful, yes it is. Artists like this are why I can never write off "modern country music."
- Kendrick Lamar's untitled throwaways are gold!
- Santigold's album 99 Cents was kind of a stark contrast to the general bummer of 2016 with some positivity and fun. It was good to have a break.
- case/lang/veirs was a great reminder of this Neko Case fan of how great K.D. Lang is.
- Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop put out a collaborative album and I liked it like I like both of them. Great complementary voices!
- Frank Ocean doesn't belong down here but I don't have time to write about Blonde enough. I really need to listen to it a bunch more times anyway.
- Kool Keith had a pretty great comeback in 2016 with Feature Magnetic.
- I quite liked Hypercaffium Spazzinate by The Descendents.
- Dan P's music is really good for playing for my son.
- Avalanches returned! It was lots of fun! Danny Brown works well for their style.
- Bon Iver went off the deep end (in a great way) with 22, A Million.
- This:
Mac McCaughan "Happy New Year (Prince Can't Die Again)"
2017 shall be the last one of these, it would appear. Not soon enough, as it's near impossible to find time to write this and update playlists with a newborn around. 2017 was the year of...stuff. I think it broke the '7 narrative I've been building in this thing. I think 2016 was better. I still need to work out what the highlights actually were though.
