2016 Music Faves

My music listening this year was very focused and depth-oriented. I find I just don't have time for anything that doesn't really move me. There's too much music coming out that DOES move me for me to find the motivation for purely intellectual listening. No, life is too short; I need to dance, and I need to rock. In that context, here are five albums and five songs that I fully loved this year.

CONTENT NOTE: Pacific Northwest rock is glaringly missing from this list. That's because I listened to and loved so much of it that it deserves its own post. Please click here to read my post about our amazing regional rock scene.

ALBUMS:
Santigold - 99 cents

This one sounds like summer to me. The dub influence, the bright vocals, the clear bows to the party gods. My go-to for every warm day we had.




PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project

Fearlessly fortifying us against all this year turned out to be, this band is in a clear artistic prime right now. If anybody can predict the future, it's Polly Harvey, and we should be listening.




Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank you 4 your service

This is the one. The standout, head-and-shoulders, definitive album of the year. I've listened to this album to start my day nearly every morning since it was released. The Tribe here shows us both the past and the future of hip-hop with this timely, appealing, and original record. I seriously can't get enough.




Dillon & Paten Locke - Food Chain

The surprise underground rap magic of this record properly enriched my year. It's packed top to bottom with big hooks, boom-bap beats, and food and drink based rhymes. Hoping we hear more from this duo!




Against Me - Shape Shift With Me

Refreshingly personal, their latest is Against Me's most fun album. Not the band I expected to have the least political album of the year, but it's kind of the perfect moment for it.





SONGS:
J-zone "Go Back to Sellin Weed"

This Bandcamp darling kept me laughing and dancing with its admonition for wack MCs to get back into the drug game. Zone's cool confidence never fails.




DJ Shadow - Nobody Move

My pick for best video of the year, this is a clear moment of inspiration between Shadow and RTJ. I love the video's juxtaposition of the familiar and the absurd, and I love how it sets the performers up not as the instigators, but as the shocked bystanders.




Jidenna - Long Live the Chief

I love Jidenna's irresistible style and sly consciousness, but this is his fattest hit to date for sure. The spare beat makes me want to move, and the rhymes are empowering and forward-thinking.




Boulevards - Move and Shout

My favorite retro jam of the year, this jam was another of my go-to palate cleansers. Plenty of haters will say otherwise, but I know disco will never die.




Kevin Gates - Really Really

I did not want to be down, but this song really grew on me. Gates sounds hungry, and the chorus is rightfully catchy. Apologies as usual for the earworm.

2016 in Northwest Rock

I was working on a year-end music blog, and it became immediately clear that the amazing modern rock music coming out of the Pacific Northwest this year deserves its own focus and thought. What's happening here is a true scene, because we have bands growing from shared passion and shared roots to cultivate an energetic, melodic, heavy, sound. It's a blast to live here in this moment and hear this music as it's being born.

Here are five Pac NW bands that put out records this year that I loved. These albums formed the backbone of my rock listening for the entire year, and I hope we look back upon them as a magical moment in American rock history.

Disenchanter - Strange Creations

Epic, imaginative, bluesy, and fun, this album is full of stories and characters harkening to the best of scifi and urban culture.



Year of the Cobra - ... In The Shadows Below

Starting from a distinctive and irresistible low-end foundation, this album branches out across rock genres in a collection of songs that sound like spells bringing ancient goddesses back to life.



Holy Grove - Holy Grove

Some kind of miracle of heavy melodies, it's a cultural travesty that this album is not #1 on national modern rock charts. Every song a singalong. Every song a headbanger.



Mos Generator - Abyssinia

Still the best kept secret in the region, this soul-metal band's latest release. Their latest incarnation is lean, tight, and all about the riff.



Helms Alee - Stillicide

Reveling in their genre-defying, inimitable style that's built around a very original guitar tone and three-part, multi-gender vocals, these songs are so listenable that one has to look really closely to see the almost avant-garde stuff they're doing with timing and rhythm. I think our children will look back and see this band as the purely artistic heart of the sound of the music of this region.



BONUS

Sun Giants - Red Silver (2015)

The traveling bards of the scene, this band has a great EP and a don't-miss live show.



Earth - Primitive and Deadly (2014)

In the midst of a long and storied career, this OG Seattle band is making their best and most accessible work right now. Noticeably the slowest-tempoed of the the bunch we're discussing today, they continue to show us how heavy need not be aggressive.