If It's Too Loud...

To kind of close the book on the year a bit, I wanted to offer up a quickie playlist of my favorite songs this year. Shuffle or not, here's how I might rank them: 1) Royksopp and Susanne Sundfor - "Never Ever" (a song that should have been 2016's "Get Lucky," a much better throwback than Daft Punk did. Song of the year for me, no question) 2) Big Thief - "Masterpiece" (tell me this song isn't the most epic sparse indie rock song you've ever heard) 3) Eric Bachmann - "Mercy" (the Nerf Herder singer/songwriter offered up one of the most emotional songs of the year for me) 4) Margaret Glaspy - "Emotions and Math" (great song, of course, but I still maintain this is actually from the point of view of a dog) 5) The Prettiots - "Suicide Hotline" (this is not a cry for help) 6) Quilt - "Roller" (local song of the year, but also a great groove and catchy chorus) 7) Lauren Mann - "New Beginning...

We'll never really know how Blackstar would have been received if David Bowie had not died mere days after its release. The reviews were glowing (as usual for a David Bowie album), but hardly spectacular. I can't honestly say if it would have made my top 10, let alone been my #1 album of 2016. That's how art works, though. In the context of Bowie's shocking death at the age of 69, Blackstar takes on a whole new significance and meaning. There were a ton of stories asking if Bowie predicted his death in the album. Such a question is absurd considering he had been battling cancer for 18 months and lyrics like "Look up here, I'm in heaven" from a song called "Lazarus" aren't exactly being subtle. On first listen, we all just assumed Bowie was playing another character in Blackstar. Maybe he was, but if he was, it was one he related to more than anyone would have ever wanted him to. Even if there are the rumored unreleased albums planned, Blac...

My top album of 2016 is Ladyhawke's Wild Things . It's my favorite album this year. It's the album I listened to the most this year. There was a moment about a month after this came out where I posted on Facebook something along the lines of "All I do is listen to Ladyhawke now" because I was so addicted to this album. When I wasn't listening to Wild Things , I went back to her older albums and listened to those instead. When I put on my playlist of current obsessions , my wife asked me why I listen to Ladyhawke so much since her songs were probably taking up 10% of the playlist most of the summer. Literally as I write this, my Spotify end-of-year recap came in my email, and three songs from this album are my top three tracks. According to Spotify, I'm in the top 1% of Ladyhawke listeners, apparently. Can you tell I love this album? It's the perfect pop rock album, for sure. It's polished but still feels fresh, it's got melodies ...

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down could be a complete trainwreck of a band. They merge folk, rock, indie, dance, and hip hop. Anytime that many genres blend, it makes it more likely for the album to be a disaster of a hodgepodge and feel completely disconnected. But A Man Alive is an absolute masterpiece. Let me explain how special Thao is. The photo pit at a major festival should be a magical place. You're within feet of rock stars, taking pictures of them, and enjoying the show in front of a crowd that has been jockeying for position all day. However, for some reason, it can be a miserable place. Photographers are trying to get that one great picture and see all others as their competition for that picture. Plus, most are just doing an assignment and see it as a waste of a weekend. That was the attitude when Thao & The Get Down Stay Down played the Newport Folk Festival in 2014. Add a torrential downpour during her set to the mix, and the photo pit should have been complete...

Midwest Farmer's Daughter is one of those rare albums that I couldn't seem to get enough of throughout 2016. It was just that album I always went back to when I got bored and couldn't decide what to put on in the background at work. Her throwback country sound just gets me perfectly. If you're the kind of person who needs at least 2 minutes to answer the question "Do you like country?," Margo Price is for you. Her appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast and her performance at this year's Green River Festival just increased my love of Midwest Farmer's Daughter. Turns out "Weekender" is actually about her brief time in jail. I even went back to listen to her old soul band, Buffalo Clover. Her live show completely won me over, and "Four Years of Chances" reaches an absolute epic level live. It never quite caught me on the album, and I swore it was some old Dolly Parton or Bobbie Gentry cover until I looked at the album and reali...

My #3 album is Tancred's Out of the Garden , a 90s-alt throwback solo project that I found late but never really stopped listening to. Sometimes an album just catches you, and this one did that for me. I did not expect to hear what felt effectively like a Letters to Cleo/Juliana Hatfield-style effort from a member of Now Now, but here we have it. I learned later that this was produced by Anna Waronker (best known for being the singer/songwriter of That Dog) and it continued to come together. Lead track "Bed Case" sets the tone, and the rest of the half-hour album just doesn't let up. It feels fresh and modern even though it wears its influences on its sleeves, and given that this is Jess Abbott's second album under this project, you can hear how the transformation of the sound compliments her songwriting style so well. Honestly, the top three albums I have this year probably changed positions on me a dozen times. You won't go wrong by giving this a l...

My obsession with Drive-By Truckers has been going pretty strong for 15 years now, ever since the release of Southern Rock Opera . In my own opinion, they haven't released a bad album in that time. Even a mediocre Drive-By Truckers album is still pretty great. Their latest release, American Band , is my favorite release of theirs since 2004's  The Dirty South. Their albums tend to be a mixture of serious, darker songs along with some that border on novelty, with some thinly veiled politics mixed throughout. American Band  drops the thin veil and sense of humor and is their most overtly political and serious album yet. Mike Cooley claimed that he "... wanted to piss off the assholes," and with songs about getting rid of the Confederate flag ("Surrender Under Protest"), Black Lives Matter and police shootings ("What It Means"), and the sex lives of conservative Christians ("Kinky Hypocrite"), it's safe to say they may have accomplishe...

My #4 album this year is Jeff Rosenstock's Worry . This one caught me by surprise and got more and more additive the more I listened to it. I didn't even list this as my favorite album of the week it came out , but did predict accurately that this would age well, and it absolutely did. This is like that classic 1990s alt-rock album you loved and forgot about, with great hooks and melodies and some nice crunchy guitars to go along with it. It's obnoxious and fun, the lyrics are off-center and provide a solid look into what a less serious album can sound like in this day and age. Overall, just an album that fills me with joy almost every time I listen to it. If you've missed this up until now, you have to check it out. Recommended: "The Fuzz," "Wave Goodnight to Me," "Staring Out the Window of Your Old Apartment"

My #5 album this year is Kaia Kater's Nine Pin . Kaia Kater hit my radar a few years back, and we were both pretty excited about Nine Pin around these parts. The result here is an album that is the sort of raw Americana that I love, with some great musicianship and some interesting songs while still feeling traditional and timeless. It's a really stellar album because of how under the radar it is, but it deserves a lot more attention than it got. The whole thing is just a gorgeous, haunting listen from top to bottom, and it deserves a look if you haven't given it one already. I've gone back to it twice in the last couple weeks because I love it so much. So get on this. Just a great listen. Recommended: "Harlem's Little Blackbird," "Harvest and the Plough," "Rising Down"

Whenever I see anything about Nots, I'm always surprised that they aren't from England and instead are from Nashville. Even though I know there are bands from Nashville besides country bands, you don't really expect there to be much of a post punk scene in Tennessee. Nots are this perfect combo of late 70s post punk groove and 90s art punk noise and riot aggression. I made the obvious comparison earlier by bringing up Sonic Youth and Bikini Kill, but that still stands. The album closer, "Entertain Me," is my favorite seven minute song I've heard in years. It's a noisy, badass epic. "Cosmetic" is a shorter song, but it's still filled with bursts of perfect noise. Cosmetic is a side of Nashville you're probably not familiar with, but you'll want to be.

To be completely fair, I could be overrating this a bit because of what it's not: absolutely horrible. With very few exceptions, whenever a rap artist from the 80s and 90s releases a comeback album, it's pretty much guaranteed to be universally horrible. In an attempt to sound current, they all seem to get stuck on what Puff Daddy did in 1998 and just have an R&B chorus over everything. Which is why A Tribe Called Quest's latest,  We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service, should be horrible. It's their first album in almost 20 years. That's never a good sign, regardless of what genre you're looking at. Plus, it was released after the death of a major member. After Phife Dawg's death back in March, they could have just rushed this out to capitalize on it. Instead, they took their time and released one of the best albums of the year, and maybe even the best hip hop album in years. To be fair, there aren't any "Scenario"s on here, b...

My #6 album is Margo Price's Midwest Farmer's Daughter . This one came out of nowhere for me. The retro classic country sound has been making a lot of waves, and Jack White's Third Man Records is really putting out quality stuff in this area, and Margo Price is no different in that regard. It feels classic and timeless while still having that raw quality to it that keeps it sounding fresh. The melodies here stick in my head all the time, and there's not a bad song on the album. And basically? The only thing keeping this from being the album of the year for me is because of how much good music has come out in 2016. If you've slept on this up until now, you still have a chance to come around. If you like classic country at all, you just need to drop what you're doing and give this a shot. Recommended songs: "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)," "Four Years of Chances," "This Town Gets Around"

Come Black Magic  is Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys' best album to date. In the few years since I've been following them, they've released an abundance of music, from soundtracks to plays, covers compilations, proper albums, etc., but Come Black Magic is their greatest sonic achievement. One of the obvious differences is the inclusion of Mary Widow as a full time member of the band. Since most of the Army of Broken Toys have fairly non-traditional voices, having a more traditional singer in their ranks really helps pull everything together with backing harmonies. Not to mention, every single song really feels like they are just going for it completely. Whether they're rallying against the patriarchy ("The Legend of Squid and Moon") or doing a Bjork cover ("Army of Me"), nothing is being done at anything but a level of full commitment. "Dull Boy," a musical tribute to The Shining  that has been rattling around their live show...

Andrew Bird's Are You Serious is my #7 album this year. I wasn't expecting this to be my favorite Andrew Bird album, but I wasn't expecting his previous album to be my favorite before that, either. Andrew Bird holds a weird spot for me personally, as he's the better version of a lot of things I already love. This album hit me first as feeling a little more stripped down and different than his past efforts, but a few listens got me right in line with why I enjoy what he does. Yeah, he whistles. Yeah, there's a good amount of violin. But the songs are just so catchy, and they get jammed into your brain and don't let go whether you want them to or not. I hear my wife humming the title track in the kitchen constantly even when she hasn't heard the song in a while. I still maintain that Bird's "worst" album was also his breakthrough, Armchair Apocrypha . Where this will sit in Bird's lineup of music over all these years remains to b...

Another album that came out way back in February that stuck with me all year was the debut from Mothers, When You Walk a Long Distance You Are Tired. One of my most anticipated releases of 2016  based solely on the strength of the song "Too Small for Eyes," the rest of the album lived up to the hype I had created in my mind. The true power of the album is  Kristine Leschper's voice, which is equal parts beautiful and discordant, fragile and powerful. "Too Small for Eyes" borders on twee, sounding like a folk song being played on a dying, broken music box. "It Hurts Until it Doesn't" is a bit more rocking and is more what indie used to be instead of what is considered indie now. "Nesting Behavior" is an incredibly delicate song that might be the most terrifying lullaby ever. "Lockjaw" simmers throughout its entire 5:00 length and builds to a crescendo that never quite comes. Right when you expect and want it to break wide open,...

My #8 album this year is Ruby the RabbitFoot's Divorce Party . When this came out, it felt like a massive departure. We loved her previous album, New as Dew , and the expectation of another solid folky singer-songwriter album was put into question when her cover of Madonna's "Take a Bow" landed, but was completely dashed when "Nicola La" came out ahead of the album. I was skeptical, but wow , this ended up being one of the albums I played the most this year. There's a cool off-center pop sensibility to it while still having the sort of stark, transparent lyrical feel we come to expect from folk music. I know this got some good blog buzz, and I hope this means bigger things for her in the long term. Still, it's one of the best of this year and has a couple of my favorite songs for 2016 as well. Check it out. Recommended: "Nicola La," "Wild Cherry Chapstick," "I Hate You."

Marlon Williams is part of this odd (but fantastic) wave of Americana coming out of Australia and New Zealand. His debut solo album came out way back in February and it's been in my regular rotation ever since. While there is a ton of country/folk albums out these days, what really makes Williams stand out is his voice. He could easily be one of the new crooners that pop up on The Voice or American Idol , but instead he's playing small clubs doing the singer-songwriter thing. There are the more upbeat songs like the album opener, "Hello Miss Lonesome" and the second song "After All," but the true standout is the moody "Dark Child." Williams is best when he's crooning a dark, melancholy tale. Plus, the indie rock style feedback that is just hinted at in the background comes out in full force towards the end. "Strange Things" is the closest thing the album comes to a traditional country song with it's haunting chorus. No one is cu...

Sometimes an album (and even a song) comes along that both speaks to you on a pretty solid level while also hitting just the right nostalgia buttons all at once. Thus Funs Cool , the debut album from The Prettiots. It's unlike anything else that sniffed the blogosphere this year while both harkening back to the anti-folk of a decade ago. It was "Suicide Hotline" that got me hooked. I had a fairly dark start of the new year, and I'm not saying that I needed a song to literally talk me off the ledge, but a song that was described by the songwriter as a letter to her therapist about how she was feeling definitely worked for me, especially with its literary references and clearly self-depreciating attitude. It became a highly-anticipated album, and the whole thing is the same way. "Boys (That I Dated in High School)" is hilarious, "18 Wheeler" appropriately dark, and so on. Overall, the result is an album that stayed on repeat for me for some...

2016 has been a pretty rough year for everyone, but luckily it's been a great year for music. This has been such a particularly great year that I've been agonizing over my top 10 this year more than others. In such a great year, I wouldn't normally include an EP in my top 10, but Crushed  by Weakened Friends is too great not to include. For a band that only formed last year, they've had a great year topped off with a mini-tour with a reunited Letters to Cleo. It was a perfect pairing for such a 90s influenced band. Weakened Friends have this amazing indie rock meets power pop punk sound. "95" is one of the most perfect songs of the year. "She's so Cool." truly shows their great pop chops with some of the best "Whoah oh oh"s you'll ever hear, and yes, that's important. "Blankets" might be the hidden gem of the EP in it's almost power ballad sound, but a sped up power ballad. Crushed  might have landed higher up in...

Because sometimes you swap them a dozen times over the course of your final rankings and decide they're both worthy. For Field Mouse, Hold Still Life was my favorite album of 2014 , and the band continues to be a favorite of ours around these parts. The Casket Girls are definitely a band I've come to love at all, with True Love Kills the Fairy Tale a favorite of mine from 2014 even if it didn't make my top ten. With their new albums, we have two bands on two different trajectories, both making for great listens, but for different reasons. With The Casket Girls, The Night Machines is largely more of the same. It's a solid listen from top to bottom with a great share of dark indie pop, but also just haunting melodies throughout. Field Mouse, in comparison, abandons a lot of the moodier, shoegazey style in favor of a more up-front indie rock affair. In both cases, they end up being addictive listens, both in terms of general musical quality but also in terms o...