Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — The rollercoaster that is 2016 has been the most confusing year in recent history, and its music echoes that. It’s come to the point where I’ve gone from wondering “what is going on with music today?” to “what is going on with me?”
Case in point: If you look at all of my previous lists, you’ll find that there is at most only one hip-hop/R&B album that pops up each year. In fact, my list of top 50 albums of the last decade has none. Imagine my surprise then, as I found out while compiling this list, that half of it is comprised of hip-hop/R&B. What does this mean? Has rock music just become so boring and repetitive? Is this the year rap music has finally come into full bloom as a reinvented, boundary-pushing genre? Did making “My Candidate” redefine my music taste? Am I spending too much time in Mao Den? I’m trying to figure that out myself.
On this list, you’ll find only two artists who’ve been here before. The rest are either brand new or, like this year’s number one, have always been on the outer boundaries of the list. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a palate cleanser for 2017. God knows we all need it.
10. NxWorries – “Yes Lawd!”
While much has been said about Anderson .Paak’s 2016 retro masterpiece “Malibu,” I choose instead to celebrate his collaboration with hip-hop producer Knxwledge: NxWorries. Their debut album “Yes Lawd!” is textured, delicate and groovy. It’s a throwback to Dilla-era Stones Throw Records but with the warmer feel of Motown. It’s also short and sweet, with most songs clocking in at less than three minutes. Knxwledge’s sexy samples, coupled with .Paak’s lazy croon-rapping makes this the perfect album for driving, reading or lovemaking — that rarest of combos.
9. Flume – “Skin”
Flume has been cited by many as the major influence behind the in-sound of the past few years. You know: that sound with the thumping bass and the low-pitched slowed down echoes plus shredded synth and of course the high-pitched meowing. It’s a sound that has been appropriated by everyone from the future bass movement to breakthrough hip-hop and trap acts. His sophomore effort “Skin” is very much a reaction to this, but in the most confusing way. Some tracks are ambient experiments; an effort to push his sound to distance himself from what he’s known for, while others sound like straight up imitations of Flume ripoffs. It’s like he’s seeing his effect on music and saying “I don’t want to be known for that, but I can’t believe I’m not getting a piece of that.” What saves the record are the pieces that feel like he’s in his comfort zone: “Never Be Like You” with Kai, “Say It” with Tove Lo, “Take a Chance” with Little Dragon. They’re some of the best singles of a year, and make up for the beautiful mess that this record is.
8. Car Seat Headrest – “Teens of Denial”
Car Seat Headrest’s debut album for a label sounds like some 24-year-old kid listened to a lot of ‘90s indie rock and just decided to put the whole movement into one album. You can literally hear all his influences on the record: Guided by Voices on “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales,” The Pixies on “Not What I Needed,” vintage Beck on “Joe Goes to School,” even Pavement on “(Joe Gets Kicked out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn’t a Problem).” But you know what? Maybe this isn’t a bad thing. Right now, rock n’ roll is dead; so it’s nice to hear a band that resurrects my favorite era.
7. Bon Iver – “22, A Million”
Remember that time last Wanderland when Bon Iver just started singing and toying with layers of autotune and you thought to yourself, “WTF is this weird sh*t come on just play ‘Skinny Love’” and yet you found yourself inexplicably crying by the time the song ended? This is exactly what this album is.
6. A Tribe Called Quest – “We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service”
A Tribe Called Quest and their ilk (De La Soul, Pharcyde, Digable Planets) represent where I always wanted hip-hop to go: soulful, more musical, less bitches/money/guns. Hearing their first album in 18 years, it’s comforting to know that Q-Tip and company never really got old. The sampling still slick and the rhymes still flowing, “We Got it From Here” is both a throwback to an almost-forgotten era in hip-hop and an audible hope for its future.
5. Chance The Rapper – “Coloring Book”
Chicago’s Chance The Rapper, with his third don’t-call-it-an-album “Coloring Book,” gives us three things that we haven’t seen in rap music in more than twenty years: faith, hope, and joy. He also does it with so much fervor and passion that he doesn’t seem cheesy for a second. This mixtape is exactly what it says it is — a perfect mix of gospel, wobbly instrumentation, lazy singing and Bon-Iver-style vocoder. Also, as a bonus: a healthy dose of Kanye.
4. Chairlift – “Moth”
I don’t discount the fact that Chairlift is on this list because we brought them here early December. I probably listened to “Moth” more times than I should have because I was getting ready for their arrival, and probably fell more in love with the album because the band members are such soulful and lovely people. However, to admit all of that would take away how good this album truly is. “Moth” is Chairlift’s best and most realized work. It’s celebratory and fun, but at its core it’s vulnerable and real. With this album, especially my song of the year “Polymorphing,” Chairlift sometimes evokes “Swing Out Sister” and (early) early “Everything But The Girl.” A week ago, the band announced that they were breaking up. Let’s hope this is a temporary thing, for it would be a disservice to music if Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberly never made anything together again.
3. Solange – “A Seat at The Table”
Solange has always been the more sophisticated, high-concept Knowles sister, and it’s still very apparent with this album. You can hear the Motown and ‘80s pop influences her earlier records had, but she also transcends all of that. “A Seat at The Table” is sparse, spacious, and direct — not only in style but also in substance. There is anger here, and confrontation, and maybe even a little too much didacticism in the form of interview soundbites about race and equality. And yet, in the wake of Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, and even Trump, it feels like there’s no better time than now. “A Seat at The Table” is what it’s like to be black in America today. “Don’t touch my hair,” she sings, in the song with the same title. She sings it with enough sadness that you feel her pain, but also with the right amount of intimidation that you find yourself cheering her on.
2. Radiohead – “A Moon Shaped Pool”
“A Moon Shaped Pool” is what happens when the most respected and influential band of this century decides to stop changing the face of music right now … and just chill. The result is the perfect comedown album. Besides, with songs like “Daydreaming” and “True Love Waits” (finally), a Radiohead that doesn’t try as hard is still better than 99 percent of the music out there.
1. Kanye West – “The Life of Pablo”
Since we’re on the subject of Radiohead, let’s talk a bit about how Kanye is hip-hop’s Radiohead. No, really. Think about it. Kanye used to make radio-friendly hits like “Touch The Sky” and “Flashing Lights” (like Radiohead made “Creep” and “High and Dry”), but then he got increasingly experimental — and everyone miraculously loved him all the more for it. If “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” with its grandeur and ambition is his “OK Computer” and “Yeezus” with its deconstructionism is his “Kid A,” the “Life of Pablo” is his “In Rainbows”: a coming to terms with his rebel soul, a maturing, an admission that he’s pushed the limits as far as he could, and maybe now it’s time to come home. He begins with a prayer that he’s hardly present in (“Ultralight Beam”) and ends with an exaltation of himself (“Saint Pablo”). And yet, getting there is such a journey: from the song “Famous,” which he legendarily performed three times in Paradise music festival last April, to the anthemic “Waves,” to the Madlib/Kendrick joint “No More Parties in L.A.,” Yeezy almost proves that he is the 21st century’s musical equivalent of his album’s namesake. Almost.
Listen to the playlist below.
